Amy Tu, executive vice president and general counsel at Tyson Foods, left and returned to Fayetteville twice. In between, she traveled the world as she climbed ever higher in her career, hitting both U.S. coasts, the center of the country and many locales overseas, including a seven- year stint in London.
That she once again calls Northwest Arkansas home is quite a coup for the region.
Through Others’ Eyes
“I was sitting at lunch today with colleagues in my industry, and all of a sudden, someone walks over and they’re connected to Amy, and I’m in D.C., and she’s in Springdale. It kind of shows that her approach to things is so much more personal in nature, and that tactic is so much more effective in how we deal with people today. This person came over and sat with us, and we talked about Amy’s short time at Tyson, but yet such an impact on where the company is headed globally. I’m sitting here in Washington, D.C., hearing about things happening in Springdale. It was powerful.” — Brian Wolff
“It was always so hard for her to leave home. Every year, she always came home. She loves us, but she knew that we wanted her to see the world. In college, she took her brother to Europe to understand Western civilization because her brother was taking Western civilization in college. She really enjoys sharing her knowledge with other people.” — Cecilia Tu
“Amy was chosen for the Johnson fellowship [because] she has accomplished so much, in a relatively short time. We wanted to honor that phenomenal success but also create opportunities for our students to meet Amy. During her time on campus she had the space to do what comes naturally to her: mentor and inspire others.” —Dean Stacy Leeds
Next Week
Joe Copeland
Fayetteville
"Arkansas has so much talent, if you think about it, that it exports in this country," says Brian Wolff, senior vice president of external affairs for Edison Electric Institute. Wolff and Tu met while serving on the board of the University of Arkansas Alumni Association. "I am really impressed that we do have a different generation of people that are bringing their experience back to Arkansas. Amy has taken her global experience from Boeing and Walmart and other companies and is bringing that right back home for what she's doing for Tyson. ... It's a big deal when we bring home our talent, and it brings the entire region forward."
"When our law students, men and women, look at the lawyers leading the way as in-house counsel in our region, there becomes a sense of normalcy with women as leaders," says Dean Stacy Leeds of the University of Arkansas School of Law.
"Northwest Arkansas has really become a place where you can go to another city pretty quickly and come right back, so from an accessibility standpoint, I think it's great," says the effervescent and stylish Tu of her most recent return to her roots. "I love being close to my parents." She and her family first moved to Fayetteville from Canada when she was very young. Her father, Yien-I Tu, mother, Cecilia, and younger brother, Andy, moved to Fayetteville when Yien-I got a position teaching in the economics department at the University of Arkansas.
Tu left Fayetteville for the first time after graduation from Fayetteville High School, where, mother Cecilia Tu says, she was a high-performing student who participated in many church and school extracurricular activities and even won a first-place award in a statewide piano competition.
"Since her brother was brain damaged with cerebral palsy during his birth, with [this] special brother she participated in the Special Olympics and other special fundraising activities," notes Cecilia. "She was very kind and compassionate to all of her friends and family."
Off to Wellesley
After graduation, Tu was considering a few different schools on the East Coast, all of them highly selective. The popular favorite around her household was Wellesley College, a private liberal arts college located near Boston that boasts an impressive list of famous names as alumnus -- including Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright.
"During my junior year in high school, I was evaluating different schools and colleges, and one of my mom's friends recommended Wellesley because she was an alumna," says Tu. "At the time, Hillary Clinton was the first lady of Arkansas.
"My mom and dad were encouraging me to apply to Wellesley along with a few other schools on the East Coast, and I remember receiving a phone call from Hillary Clinton. I can't remember if it was before or after I was accepted, but I thought, 'Wow, what is this?'" Tu laughs at the memory. "As I recall, she said that she hoped that I would consider Wellesley -- a fantastic school, fabulous education and lifelong friends. And after a visit to the college, I thought, 'Absolutely. This is going to give me a really different perspective on academics as well as an opportunity to see what was outside of Arkansas.' But I don't think I would have considered Wellesley so seriously if it weren't for the recommendation from my mom's friend, the phone call from Hillary Clinton, and the stellar list of alumnae including Madame Chiang Kai-shek."
Tuition for such a school is not cheap, and Tu was determined not to be an economic burden on her parents. Her brother, Andy, lives with cerebral palsy, and her mother has spent much of her life advocating on behalf of Andy and other Northwest Arkansas residents with disabilities. Tu was keenly aware of the economic responsibilities involved in the care for her brother, and applied for a U.S. Air Force ROTC scholarship. The highly competitive scholarship would pay full tuition costs for Tu at Wellesley, and would require, in turn, a host of physical activities, including a mini-boot camp and Saturday mornings spent completing tough physical exercises.
Tu's initial plan for a pre-med track shifted midway through school, when her interest in the science classes started to wane.
"Electives such as finance, art history and economics, however, were very interesting-- so in my junior year, I changed my major to economics."
Though it meant giving up her scholarship -- the AFROTC program didn't have a spot available for an economics major -- the move would be the beginning of a long string of career successes for Tu. She worked her way through the last two years of college and, just after graduation, she was offered a position at Merrill Lynch in investment banking.
Several friends also ended up with offers, and Tu set off to live a college graduate's dream: a good-paying job at a well-respected firm in one of the world's most exciting cities.
"This was 1989," she recalls. "It was a lot of fun. New York was New York -- it was crazy back then. It wasn't quite as pristine as it is now.
"It was a two-year program, and it was fantastic from the standpoint of getting an education around corporate finance and the bond industry and [mergers and acquisitions]. I made a lot of friends and learned a lot of things. It was a terrific opportunity."
Business and law
At the end of the two years, Tu assessed her career progress and decided business school might be next. She realized that a varied business resume would be valuable when applying to the top schools, so she went back to one of her earlier plans and took a job in the fashion industry.
"I had a friend who worked at Saks Fifth Avenue, and she said, 'We're looking for an assistant buyer in the cosmetic buyer's office,' and, as I said, I was interested in fashion," says Tu. "So I said, 'This will be great, I'll go do this for a couple of years and then hopefully head to business school.'"
Sure enough, the new position gave her a completely different exposure to the corporate world. After about a year and a half, she decided she was ready to start applying to business schools.
"At the time, Bill Clinton was running for president, so I had the novel idea of returning back to Arkansas, spending some time at my parents' house for the summer, pulling together business school applications -- because that was going to take some time and focus -- and potentially volunteering for the campaign. I came back to Fayetteville, lived at my parents' house and started on the plan that I had developed -- and then the plan went in a different direction."
For the first time in her life, the high-achieving, ambitious Tu was slowing her life down a bit -- and her parents weren't sure what to think about that.
"Seeing how comfortable I was becoming by living at home, my parents asked, 'How long are you going to do this for?'" remembers Tu, with a laugh. "I responded with surprise, 'I'm working on my applications,' and they said, 'Let us see your applications,' and, of course, they were blank. My parents said, 'You must have a deadline!' and I said, 'OK, you're right. I will work to complete them.'"
Tu had started working on the extensive essays required for business school applications when her mother suggested she consider law school.
"We talked with her [and told her to] just take time to think, and really find out what is more important in her life so that she could do what she likes," remembers Cecilia.
Tu met with family friends in the legal industry, peppering them with questions about the field.
"And what I learned is that a legal education provides a general and broad base of knowledge and more importantly, a framework of thinking that you can use in any job and any industry," she says.
When she did well on the LSATs -- which, she says, surprised the math-centric Tu -- her decision was made. With a well-respected law school right down the road, Tu says she saw no reason to spend more on tuition at a pricier institution, so she earned her degree at the University of Arkansas School of Law.
"Law school is tough," she says. "You have to be very disciplined given the amount of reading and analysis of cases. My mind was really calibrated toward finance and business transactions. Moving to the study of law required a bit of work. Although I struggled at first, I realized that law was much like math -- there was an analytical framework to which you would analyze a situation. Once I understood the framework and logic, it all started to make much more sense."
She clerked for Judge H. Franklin Waters, chief Federal District Judge for the Western District of Arkansas, and it was a position she enjoyed so much she thought she might want to pursue clerk positions in the future. But, on a whim, she sent her resume to the biggest employer in Arkansas. She soon had a phone call from Walmart's general counsel, Robert Rhoades.
"He said, 'I just want to ask you a few questions,' which he proceeded to do," remembers Tu. "He then said, 'If you could do anything you wanted to, what would it be,' and immediately I responded, 'international law.' I had an interest in international, in part because of my investment banking role, working with global companies on international transactions. He said, 'I want you to come down and interview with us. We might have a job for you.' And that's how I landed a job at Walmart as one of the first international counsels. They were just beginning to establish presence in some international markets, and they were looking to expand."
See the world
It would turn out to be a fortuitous position for her, not just because she met her husband while working for the corporation. She traveled all over the world, hitting nearly every continent. After almost five years in her position, though, she was ready for a change.
"I think, in my mind, I hadn't yet concluded that I wanted to stay in Arkansas for the long term," she says. "It was a good time for me to figure out what more was out there, since I didn't feel that I was quite finished exploring other places, other companies, other options."
A friend let her know that The Gap was looking for international counsel, and, before she knew it, Tu was packing her bags for San Francisco. She wasn't in that position long before a headhunter contacted her and wooed her away to Boeing, where she would work for 16 years, ascending their corporate ladder ever higher throughout that period. While working for Boeing, she would live in Seattle, Chicago and London, the latter being where she would have a hand in creating the global law affairs office -- a new department that would handle the company's overseas business. She covered Europe, Russia and Israel while stationed overseas.
"I traveled to Moscow and St. Petersburg to deal with the issues that we had over there and, as you can imagine, with an aerospace company, the issues can be multifaceted as well as complex."
Her career successes with Boeing were even more impressive when considering the male-dominated environment.
"I've faced challenges, trying to break the ceilings that I've wanted to break," acknowledges Tu. "I would just say to women -- you must continue. You must continue to chip away at the ceiling -- be diplomatic about it, but also be smart ... It's not easy -- learn and find the most constructive way to achieve your goal. That's what I learned from my amazing mother -- a Chinese mother, living in the South, with a disabled child -- you learn to make it work and slowly, you'll break that ceiling. I attribute a lot to my mom."
She was working in Washington, D.C., when she got yet another call from a headhunter.
"It was funny. I wasn't looking, but a recruiter I knew in New York called me," says Tu. "She had previously floated a couple of job opportunities by me, and she knew I was ultimately interested in becoming a general counsel. Then, one day she called me and said, 'You won't believe this! There's an opportunity in Arkansas.' I said, 'What is it?' She said, 'Tyson Foods.' I thought it was pretty interesting that someone from New York would call me about an opportunity that was down the street [from where I used to live]."
She was immediately drawn to the position.
"The attraction was the job," she says. "Because if you're an in-house lawyer, more than likely you aspire to become a general counsel."
Her job interview would seal the deal.
"When I interviewed with Tom Hayes, the CEO, John Tyson, the chairman, and Mary Oleksiuk, the head of human resources, I realized that there is something transformative happening at Tyson Foods. I said, 'This is a tremendous opportunity, much like the opportunity I had with Walmart.' You can sense that Tyson Foods is transforming, and you want to be a part of it. You want to be remembered for and you want to give back to the community that you were raised in. This company is very much about giving back to the communities and embracing diversity, cultures, and people. I was (and continue to be) convinced."
Forging the future
Tu has been back in Arkansas and at her desk at Tyson Foods for a little over six months now, a period she has characterized as a whirlwind. She's still getting used to the idea of owning a house -- with more than twice the square footage of her D.C. condo -- and a yard of her own. But she has no doubts that returning to Arkansas for the second time was the right decision.
"I love working with my colleagues," she says emphatically. "I love what we're trying to do. I tell people every day, I'm so lucky to have this opportunity. Because you're working with a group of people at the leadership level who are communicating, all the time, and who are working in a common direction with one strategy and one purpose. That, to me, is one of the most important parts of loving your job -- loving the people who you're working with -- knowing that you can raise issues in a comfortable setting, as difficult as they may be, and debating them ... we all have different opinions about things, but the environment that has been created is one that is collaborative and communicative."
"I think landing at Tyson is indicative of the way Amy lives her life," says Wolff. "It's really about the personalization she brings to things. Everything is so hyper-speed, and relationships are fleeting -- and she does such a good job of being so connected with people, places and things. And I don't see a lot of that anymore."
Tu paints a picture of a company where the chairman is surprisingly accessible.
"I love the fact that John Tyson walks the hallways and always makes it a point to stop in with interesting ideas," she says with a smile. "I appreciate that you can step in quickly into a job and just focus on that, but to have someone who asks about what you are working on, or your view on a percolating topic in the press, is really important for me. ... John's interest and accessibility for me has been a wonderful, wonderful treat -- I'm going to do my best for the company and for the legacy of the company."
Over the last few years, says Tu, she has become keenly aware of how difficult it is for women to achieve the career heights she has over the course of her career, in primarily male-dominated fields. A recent survey found that only 25 percent of Fortune 500 general counsel positions are held by women.
"We have something remarkable going on in Northwest Arkansas when it comes to women and the legal profession," says Leeds. "When Amy assumed her new position, she completed the triangle. All of the big three - Walmart, Tyson and JB Hunt are led by female general counsel. That doesn't happen by accident, it takes leadership and purposeful decision-making."
"In the last few years, it has become extremely important to me that I am helping where I can help, that I am supporting where I can support, because I think we all need to help each other, if we're going to continue to drive change, and drive diversity and inclusion," Tu says firmly. "I really appreciate all of the women who have supported me, and I just feel like I need to help support future generations."
Lara Jo Hightower can be reached by email at lhightower@nwadg.com.
NAN Profiles on 08/05/2018