Kristine Thompson

Director of marketing
Greater Des Moines Partnership

Age: 32

Partner: Josh Thompson

Children: Noah and Jack

Mentor: Tiffany Tauscheck, chief operations officer at the Greater Des Moines Partnership

Why she’s a Forty: She helped to launch the #DSMstrong message of strength and recovery amid the COVID-19 pandemic along with partner organizations, including promoting the DSM Day of Thanks to recognize and thank front-line workers. She worked along with community partners to host the media filing center and social media command center as part of the 2020 Iowa Caucus Consortium. Working with local businesses, she helped create the DSM Local campaign, including the #DSMlocalchallenge designed to drive support for small businesses during the pandemic. She leads the Partnership’s marketing committee, made up of a dozen local marketing experts.

What are your goals in your role at your company? 

My goal is to market Greater Des Moines as the best place to build a business, a career and a future. I lead branding, marketing and advertising including managing the Partnership's national digital marketing efforts to attract prospective talent and businesses to the DSM region.

What are your goals for your community involvement? 

My family is directly affected by congenital heart disease. CHD is the No. 1 birth defect and affects 1 in 100 babies. My goal is to bring awareness to CHD in the hopes that more research and funding will be allocated to benefit future kids and families.

What's your biggest passion, and why? 

I am passionate about positively impacting my community for future generations. Together, we can accomplish so much more than we can do alone — and how cool is it that our children and grandchildren will get to reap the reward from what we sow?

What is it that drives you? 

People are not intended to go it alone, and this pandemic has shown the importance of togetherness. Having the opportunity to collaborate with amazing leaders in our community to find creative ideas and unique solutions for the greatest impact for our region together — that’s what drives me.

What are your future aspirations? 

I want to be part of positively impacting DSM’s future as the best place to live, work and do business during economic recovery coming out of the pandemic.

Three hobbies: Anything outdoors: running, hiking, water sports. I’m looking forward to seeing the Central Iowa Water Trails fully come to life.

Fun fact: As a young girl, she dreamed of being a Rockette but was forced to abandon that idea when she realized she did not meet the minimum height requirement of 5 feet, 6 inches.

ONE word: Resilient.

What is your wish for the Central Iowa business community? 

I’m hopeful that, as a region, we embrace the pandemic as an opportunity to create a new, better normal. What a perfect time to reflect and take action on what we can be doing better as a community.