TAMIE MINAMI VICE PRESIDENT LATIN AMERICA 3M
Company: 3M Industry: Manufacturing & Technologies CEO: Inge Thulin Employees: 89,446 Headquarters: St. Paul, Minnesota
THIS 3M VP’S GLOBAL CAREER IS BUILT ON DETERMINATION, INTEGRITY, AND TRUST
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s 3M’s Vice President of Latin America, Tamie Minami is responsible for successful and sustainable business growth and operations in 20 countries across the area. She lives by three words: determination, integrity, and trust.
execution. As part of her career path, her responsibilities expanded in 2000 as a business development manager for two divisions of 3M Japan. She subsequently returned to a role for the U.S. market as a marketing operations manager and few years later was appointed Six Sigma Master Black Belt in 3M’s Personal Care and Related Products Division.
Born in Japan, Minami’s career at 3M launched more than two decades ago as a pharmaceutical product manager in Australia. Her career She went on as a managing director has since surged in markets across in Switzerland and about three years the globe, including North America, later returned to the United States Europe, Asia and now South America. as vice president of 3M’s Homecare Division. Minami describes that Minami’s colleagues say she transition as her biggest career knows just when to engage the leap, saying the key take away was right resources at the right time to maximizing talented team members drive outcome-based decisions and by providing them freedom to excel achieve strong results. As a strategic at what they did best. “My role was and pragmatic thinker, she’s quick to provide a clear direction and make to understand the dynamics of 14
PROFILES IN DIVERSITY JOURNAL • Summer 2016
sure the team worked as one for the common goal,” Minami said. She relocated to Southeast Asia in 2013 as a regional vice president, where she was instrumental in designing and implementing a new regional market approach to serve customers without borders. Among her professional activities, she’s involved with the new 3M Leadership Way program. As part of this, she’s traveled to India with an executive team proposing solutions to some of the country’s challenging issues related to the impact of climate change on farming. She believes diversity is essential for 3M’s longevity and profitable growth. She holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Pharmacology; University of Sydney, Australia. PDJ