Bari Harlam works hard and cares much

Bari HarlamBari Harlam, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for BJ’s Wholesale Club, learned to strategize early in life. When she was a teenager, she used to babysit for three girls who lived across the street. That’s when she discovered the power of fun. Harlam figured out that if they all had a great time together, they would later listen to her when she needed to discipline them. By developing a relationship with the children, she opened up the possibility of strictness when needed. To this day, she continues to perfect her relationship with colleagues and students.

To say that Harlam’s career is impressive would be a gross understatement. Her accomplishments fall into the world of business and academia. Harlam’s resume boasts such roles as senior vice president of marketing at CVS Caremark, professor at the University of Rhode Island and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business and board member of Eastern Bank. She is planning to teach a course at the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Business, as she did last year, traveling there one day a week. She enjoys being a professor; after all, before she entered the corporate world, she was a full-time academic for 13 years.

Harlam insists on juggling multiple positions because she thinks that “it’s good to do different things.” Often, she says, ideas from one field are relevant to other areas, fostering sharing, innovation and application of elements. For instance, she brings up the fact that a bank has a retail focus. The concern of improved delivery to consumers applies to her job at BJ’s as well. Similarly, when she taught a retail course, she invited guest speakers from the business world. In turn, while working with the same students on applying the concepts they were learning, she picked up some tips for her BJ’s job. Harlam says she’s able to do what she does because she works with great teams of people. Collaboration allows her to achieve synergy across different disciplines.

Such was the case when she joined CVS while on a sabbatical from URI. Harlam’s research area was loyalty programs. At the time, CVS was testing the ExtraCare Rewards Program. While the idea was already in existence, Harlam helped shape it, testing various options and settling on the best model. Ultimately, she ended up leaving the academic world to join the company in leading the launch. She stayed for 13 years, taking on more responsibilities and observing the improvements in the program.

Her typical goal is to figure out how to deliver what consumers want and to solve problems encountered when she’s trying to make their wishes come true. This can involve helping store employees understand why it’s valuable to do what she’s asking them to do. Harlam loves working with other people, helping her team members grow and learning from others.

She, too, had a mentor who shared some valuable advice with her. He said, “Take the ball, but don’t wait for somebody to pass it to you.” Harlam elaborates, “Just being good and waiting is not enough.”

At the same time, just counting on hard work is insufficient as well. Whenever she’s interviewing a candidate for a position, she asks the same question, “Do you consider yourself to be a lucky person?” Harlam looks for someone who understands that not everything is about working hard and recognizes that good fortune and luck play an important part in success.

Harlam considers herself to be an extremely fortunate person who benefited from many favorable circumstances in life. She is thankful to her parents, “amazing teachers,” for making it possible for her to grow up in a great family, saying, “The heart of my being lucky stems from them.” She acknowledges that her success has something to do with the fact that she never had to worry about being hungry, safe or educated. Harlam visits her parents, Jack and Paulette Abrams, who now live in Florida, a few times a year. She’s grateful that, at 85 and 80, respectively, they are healthy and can travel to Rhode Island for important occasions such as grandkids’ graduations.

Harlam says that another large part of her achievement is her “talented and generous husband Alan.” She describes him as a very successful man, a great father and husband, saying that she wouldn’t be able to succeed without his partnership and support.

Because both she and her husband were dedicated to their careers, Harlam says that, at times, she wondered whether her three children were getting enough support and attention. She questioned her decision to work, but ultimately decided that she would not have been a better mother had she stayed at home. Harlam thinks that her kids have become more independent because they had no choice. What’s more, she believes that they benefited from engaging in her work through discussion and from doing things on their own that she might have done for them had she been a stay-at-home mom.

Now that her youngest is leaving for college this summer, Harlam is somewhat sad to have an empty nest, but happy and proud at the same time. But just because the kids are out of the house doesn’t mean that she and her husband won’t be seeing a lot of them. The family is big on vacations together – whether scuba diving or skiing, the parents travel with their children as much as they can.

Besides working and playing hard, they try to structure their lives according to tikkun olam – getting involved in nonprofits and helping friends and family whenever possible. Harlam says she finds these activities rewarding and satisfying, “It feels right. It’s great to do.” Offering aid to loved ones and being able to deliver value to companies and communities go hand-in-hand for Harlam. She enjoys making positive impact, saying “I wish I could do more and enable others to do more.”

So far, she says she’s been able to accomplish much by working hard, caring about everyone she works with and being lucky. Yet, her flourishing career doesn’t exclude challenges. Harlam says she stumbles all the time. She calls making mistakes and learning from them “the essence of ongoing success.” Some time ago, she even had a sign above a light switch that said, “Make better mistakes tomorrow.” She placed it there because it inspired her, setting an important tone. Harlam says that the saying applies to all the teams she works with. “You can’t be perfect.”

At work, she interacts with many analytical people, often sharing the wisdom with them that “Being vaguely right is much better than being precisely wrong.” Harlam found the quote in Professor Leonard Lodish’s book, “The Advertising and Promotion Challenge: Vaguely Right or Precisely Wrong?” According to Lodish, who was her dissertation advisor at Wharton, it’s important not to get caught up in precision; otherwise, you might end up disregarding the main problem you’re trying to solve. According to Harlam’s resume, she knows how to see the forest for the trees.

IRINA MISSIURO is a writer and editorial consultant for The Jewish Voice.