The Kim Komando Show

Kim’s weekly three-hour call-in talk radio show is heard (via her own national radio network called WestStar) on over 470 stations. In addition, she does a Digital Minute radio feature five days a week, has written ten books about life in the digital age, sends out close to 10 million e-mail newsletters weekly, and authors a widely syndicated newspaper column, which also runs in USA Today.com. She does all of this, while raising a son and operating a growing media empire, with her husband and associate, Barry Young.

Kim is a pioneer in marketing and training for home computers, and recently won the 2007 Gracie Award, voted by Talker’s Magazine “Woman of the Year.” She is also the answer to a question in the game Trivial Pursuit, having evolved into a national digital guru. Most recently, she was a featured speaker while attending Fortune Magazines’ 2009 Most Powerful Woman Summit, a prestigious meeting of the nation’s top CEOs including Yahoo!, Xerox, Dupont and Warren Buffett.

Kim has built a media legacy driven by her passion for “all things digital.” Born and raised in New Jersey, her father was a successful businessman. Her mother was part of the team that developed the UNIX operating system.

She graduated from high school at 16 and then Arizona State University when she was 20. By then, she had set up a successful business, training people to use their computers.

That business made Kim realize just how universal the computer age had become; she began envisioning her empire, which would come in less than 10 years.

After stints at IBM and AT&T in sales, Kim joined Unisys, selling mainframe systems to big clients, including Motorola, Hughes and, in particular, Honeywell. The latter was embroiled in a lawsuit with Unisys when Kim got the account.

It was small beginnings, but the bug had bitten her. On Jan. 1, 1992, only seven years after graduating from college, she made a big career change: dishing out advice to consumers via print and radio outlets.

In the mid-1990s, as her show began to grow, she set up WestStar TalkRadio Network with husband Barry.

Convinced a national audience existed for her show, she and Barry forged onward–station by station, syndicating them with their firm, WestStar. Kim’s audience grew steadily. Today, it has over 470 radio outlets and close to 10 million weekly listeners. The company now also syndicates other national radio shows.

Kim and Barry built their first studio on a shoestring in 1994. Today, they operate from a 6,000-square-foot state-of-the-art facility in Phoenix, with six studios and 30 employees. The show airs weekends for three hours, receiving 50,000 calls per hour.

Among Kim’s pursuits has been a healthy balance of work and motherhood. In 2000, her son, Ian, was born. Until he was 4, he attended pre-school classes at the office with a state certified teacher.

Meanwhile, Kim and Barry are focusing on their growing business and their growing son.

And by the looks of her success, it makes perfect sense to the rest of America, as well.