Feeling that her profession chose her, Dr. Maitai P. Gordwin, MBA, began her career as a call center agent with PFSweb in 1999 while studying at the Art Institute of Dallas. Earning an Associate of Applied Arts in fashion design in 2001, she made the choice to stay with PFSweb, rising to become a CCC senior supervisor as she continued her education at Texas Woman’s University, where she completed a Bachelor of Arts in fashion design in 2005. Once she had completed her fashion degrees, she was encouraged by her mentor at PFSweb to continue her studies in business, which she did, graduating from Texas Woman’s University with a Master of Business Administration in project design in 2008. Dr. Gordwin also obtained certification as a project management professional from the Project Management Institute and as a scrum master through the Scrum Alliance.
Incredibly grateful for the support she received at PFSweb, Dr. Gordwin remained with the company for another five years, serving as an operations project manager from 2008 to 2011 and as an implementation manager from 2011 to 2013. From there, she joined MoneyGram, where she spent 2014 to 2015 as an information technology (IT) project manager, level three, which was followed by a year with Redtoo as a senior IT project manager. From 2016 to 2018, she was the senior IT project manager for development and operations with American Airlines and the senior IT project manager for e-commerce for Belk from 2018 to 2019. Over the course of this period, Dr. Gordwin notably reduced operating costs by nearly $200,000 for the companies she worked for and helped to develop a tracking and reporting tool that improved agent productivity by 20%.
Dr. Gordwin subsequently spent time with North Highland as their senior IT project manager from 2019 to 2021, where she was responsible for supervising daily operational activities and supported the establishment of Workday, a cloud-based software that specializes in human capital management and deployment and impacts more than 8,000 individuals. During this time, she furthered her skills by earning a Doctor of Philosophy in business administration and project management from North Central University in Arizona in 2020. Today, Dr. Gordwin is a senior information technology program manager consultant and works with a wide range of companies in the e-commerce, technical and retail industries, such as Lowe’s, Tractor Supply Co., Old Dominion, American Eagle, Ahold Delhaize and Citco.
Alongside her primary responsibilities, Dr. Gordwin founded Black Women in Project Management, a nonprofit organization whose goal is to support Black women in the field of project management, in 2020. As she looks toward the future, she hopes to see the organization grow as well as to increase her own involvement as she begins thinking about retirement from her consulting practice. She is incredibly grateful to the mentors who guided her throughout her career, recognizing her talent and helping her to nurture it. Dr. Gordwin’s goal now is to continue mentoring women and helping them to grow in the industry.
For her excellence, Dr. Gordwin has been the recipient of a number of honors and accolades over the course of her career. Most notably, she was presented with the Leader of Excellence Award by PFSweb in 2012, which she considers to be the absolute highlight of her career. Furthermore, PFSweb also awarded her team a bonus trip that included their families, which was another very special moment for her. When she isn’t working, Dr. Gordwin enjoys cultivating her hobbies of gardening and landscaping as well as spending time with her family, which has grown to include three sons and one grandson.