kia fariba.Let’s talk

PARTNERSHIPS · MARKETPLACES · GROWTH

Los Angeles, CA

I connect the dots.
I build the business.

I’m Kia. I turn complex opportunities into strong partnerships, growing marketplaces, and teams that deliver.

Seven years at Walmart, connecting commercial strategy with the work that makes growth happen.

Explore my work View resume
Walmart Marketplace & Walmart BusinessUC BerkeleyEntrepreneur & operator
15×

Individual GMV goal

$30M against a $2M target
FY2021 review snapshot

4,500

Team seller launches

150% of plan
Calendar year 2021

$80M

Team new-seller sales

125% of plan
Calendar year 2021

3×

Making the Difference

Walmart award recipient
Across my Walmart career

01 / SELECTED WORK

Opportunity,
meet execution.

Three different challenges.
The same instinct to move things forward.

01

WALMART MARKETPLACE INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTION

Turning seller potential into marketplace sales.

A seller agreement is only the beginning. I connected prospecting, qualification, onboarding, and launch to help promising sellers become active marketplace businesses.

My contribution Category judgment, seller relationships, and hands-on follow-through when onboarding got complicated.

Inside the work

The challenge

Grow the seller base while helping partners navigate verification, item setup, and the work required to launch.

How I approached it

I researched the opportunity, identified the next blocker, and coordinated the right internal resources. I connected sellers with fulfillment, advertising, listing-quality, and shipping support, keeping the full journey in view.

The result

At the FY2021 review cutoff, my manager recorded approximately 1,100 launches and $30M in GMV, ranking me first on the business development team in GMV.

Individual performance-review snapshot. GMV is the value of sellers’ marketplace sales; it is not Walmart revenue.

02

WALMART MARKETPLACE HOME TEAM LEADERSHIP

Building a team that could repeat the result.

I helped build the Home inbound business development team, hiring four people and creating the routines that made good judgment teachable.

My contribution Practical coaching, clear ownership, and workflows that kept sellers moving from interest to launch.

Inside the work

The challenge

Turn growing inbound interest into qualified sellers, completed onboarding, and productive launches.

How I approached it

I led office hours and playbook training, clarified opportunity ownership, and coached the team across prospecting, onboarding, launch, and seller growth. I also developed Revenue Finder and taught other teams to use it.

The result

In calendar 2021, the team delivered 4,500 seller launches at 150% of plan and $80M in new-seller sales at 125% of plan.

Team outcomes for calendar year 2021. The prospecting method’s separate sales impact was not measured.

03

WALMART MARKETPLACE INTERNATIONAL EXPANSION

Making a new seller segment possible.

International sellers wanted to join the marketplace. The operating model needed a workable path to get them there.

My contribution On a two-person founding team, I authored the business case and helped turn the opportunity into an operating pilot.

Inside the work

The opportunity

A pool of previously declined international applicants provided a starting point for finding qualified sellers with valuable selection.

How I approached it

I worked across Legal, Trust & Safety, operations, business development, and category teams to coordinate reviews and help sellers navigate verification, contracts, account setup, and launch.

The result

The pilot secured approval for 75+ sellers across 19 countries. Its roughly 50-seller launch cohort generated $50M in incremental GMV and $3.6M in net profit in the launch fiscal year.

Pilot and cohort outcomes from a shared team effort. These figures describe the launch fiscal year, not an individual contract or my personal sales.

A CLOSER LOOK

The work
behind the work.

Methods, conversations, and decisions that shaped how I operate.

Revenue FinderA prospecting method I built and taught.

I combined Salesforce pipeline segmentation, Excel domain preparation, ZoomInfo company matching, and outreach tailored to each seller’s stage.

  1. Segment the queue. Separate completed applications, active and inactive onboarding, and live sellers.
  2. Add company context. Prepare domains in Excel and match businesses in ZoomInfo.
  3. Make the next step relevant. Align research and outreach with the seller’s immediate needs.

I documented the method and taught other teams how to use it, turning a personal technique into a repeatable team practice.

Customer discoveryStart with how people actually buy.

At the Reservation Economic Summit in 2023, I represented Walmart Business in conversations with Native-owned businesses about shared purchasing, online tax exemption, and delivery needs.

The experience reinforced how I approach partnerships: understand how customers operate and where buying becomes difficult before proposing a solution.

My perspective was featured in NC Magazine’s Spring 2024 coverage of Walmart Business.

Publisher’s issue archive ↗
Analytical judgmentTest the assumption before acting on it.

In a 2021 analytics course project, I tested whether catalog size and self-reported business revenue could help prioritize marketplace onboarding support.

The relationships with marketplace GMV were weak. Missing responses, outliers, and self-reported data limited the findings, so the analysis was not ready to guide business development decisions.

The lesson: a convenient signal still needs to earn its place in a commercial decision.

02 / HOW I ADD VALUE

Strategy with
an operator’s instinct.

I’m at my best when the opportunity is real,
the path is complex, and someone needs to own it.

01

Strategic partnerships

Understand what matters to each side and build a path from the first conversation to a working relationship.

02

Marketplace growth

Connect seller acquisition, activation, and expansion to customer needs and the economics of the platform.

03

Commercial judgment

Bring category experience, forecasting, and analytical thinking to decisions about where to invest effort.

04

Teams & execution

Coach people, align cross-functional teams, and make complicated work easier to execute.

RECOGNITION / WALMART

Making the Difference
award recipient.

Three awards across my Walmart career.

View my resume ↗

03 / EXPERIENCE

Built at scale.
Applied to what’s next.

A career spanning category management, marketplace business development, partnerships, and entrepreneurship.

The full story, on paper ↗
2024–PRESENT

Co-Founder & CEO

My Collaborating Doc

Building a psychiatry-focused collaboration business, bringing together provider relationships, go-to-market strategy, and practical operating workflows.

2022–2024

Senior Manager, Business Development & Partnerships

Walmart Business

Partnership and customer-acquisition planning across Walmart’s ecosystem, with customer discovery, campaign coordination, and field engagement.

2020–2022

Strategy & Business Development → Home BD Lead

Walmart Marketplace

Seller acquisition and activation, team coaching, CRM workflows, and commercial performance. Home team leadership, 2021–2022.

2019–2020

International Program Associate

Walmart Marketplace

International seller acquisition, cross-functional program development, and launch execution.

2017–2019

Category Management

Walmart eCommerce

A merchant’s foundation in assortment, pricing, supplier relationships, and category profitability.

04 / A LITTLE MORE HUMAN

Curious by nature.
Hands-on by default.

I like understanding how a business actually works—the people, the incentives, the operations, and the opportunity hiding between them.

Outside work, that curiosity shows up in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, golf, dog training, and learning how AI can turn good ideas into useful tools.

EDUCATIONUC BerkeleyB.S., Environmental Economics & Policy
LANGUAGESEnglish & Spanish

Continuing development: eCornell Data Analytics · Product School Web Development

TOOLS I WORK WITH

Salesforce / ZoomInfo / Excel / Tableau / Looker / LinkedIn Sales Navigator

05 / LET’S CONNECT

Building the next
stage of growth?

I’m interested in marketplace growth, strategic partnerships, and commercial teams that turn opportunity into results.

kiafariba1@gmail.com Connect on LinkedInView resume PDFDownload resume Word