Job history: Shawntell is co-founder and managing partner of Russell-Kroese Partners, a logistics and supply-chain consulting venture launched in early 2025. The firm is designed to apply her and co-founder Rob Russell's expertise to complex logistics and supply-chain challenges. Drawing on decades of leadership across railroads, trucking, sustainability and global supply chains, Shawntell helps clients uncover efficiencies, strengthen core competencies and align operational performance with long-term strategic goals.

Why she's influential as a leader: During her 29-year career in rail and supply chain roles, Shawntell made numerous contributions long before launching her own consulting firm. In leadership roles at Union Pacific Railroad, she helped improve the customer experience and was integral in merging commercial subsidiaries into Loup Logistics, which she then led. Also at UP, she created training for salespeople to learn UP's end markets. She also created the "Union Pacific Class" at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

After UP, she became a full professor at the university's Business College, where she taught courses on the supply chain and then became the first sustainability executive for Werner Enterprises. Now as the managing partner of her own firm, she brings her executive experience to her clients. She works alongside railroads, shippers and supply-chain stakeholders to improve their businesses via customized training, sustainability, analysis and creative thinking.