Denise Karkos, senior vice president and chief e-commerce officer of Dick’s Sporting Goods, has played soccer her entire life — including at the University of Notre Dame, where she served as team captain her senior year.

That sports mentality has always been ingrained in her, and during her keynote presentation at Women in Retail’s On the Road Pittsburgh event earlier this month, she shared how it’s helped her in her career.

“Even when you’re done with your sport, you still have this athlete operating system,” she said, adding that idea has shaped her decision making over the years, especially when it comes to her career.

As she was began her career in various advertising agencies, Karkos realized that while she loved the craft of marketing, she loved leading teams more. Her wayfinding device, she said, is wherever she can make a bigger impact and lead bigger teams.

“That really helped shape my decision making,” she added.

So she set her sights on becoming a chief marketing officer, gathering mentors and asking them what other experiences she needed in order to achieve her goal. They advised her to get out of the agency world and get into the brand side, so she could understand the language of that business.

So she did just that, becoming an advertising manager at L.L. Bean, then spending over a decade at TD Bank and TD Ameritrade, where she eventually served as CMO. She then moved on to become CMO of SiriusXM before finding herself at Dick’s Sporting Goods, where she was able to marry her passions of sports and building great teams as the chief e-commerce officer.

As she leads teams, she looks for tangible wins — wins that she can personally achieve, and wins her team can achieve.

Karkos suggests asking yourself, “What can you point to at the end of the day during an annual review .. things that you can point to that you tangibly did?”

She said she keeps a list on her phone of the things she feels like she’s doing well, and the things she thinks she’s not doing well.

“It never ends,” she said. “The tangibility of what you’re trying to accomplish is super important.”

Women in Retail Leadership Circle (WIRLC) members can view Karkos’ full keynote, as well as all the recordings from our On the Road series, here. Not a member? Apply today!