On December 17, the Indiana Pacers hired longtime WNBA executive Kelly Krauskopf as the first woman assistant general manager in NBA history. Krauskopf previously served as the Indiana Fever team president and general manager for 19 years, where she molded the 2012 WNBA Championship team. We sat down with her for a Q&A as she embarks her new role with the Pacers organization.

What are your opening remarks in terms of getting this position and where you are now…

It’s been a whirlwind day. I just feel like this is the next chapter in my career in terms of being able to stay in the game that I love, working with the organization that I’m very familiar with, and doing what I can to help Kevin Pritchard and his staff. This opportunity is something that I’m very honored to have been asked and it felt right for me to take this step after spending 19 years building the Indiana Fever and the WNBA.

Can you go how the hiring process works, how this opportunity was presented to you and why it was the right time to make this move?

Kevin Pritchard approached me over a month ago and asked me, ‘Have you ever thought about working in the NBA front office? Would you ever be interested?’ We were talking casually about it and I just said that I haven’t really thought about it. I’m one of those people where, when I am in a job, I’m not thinking about my next move. Obviously I’ve been here 19 years so I’m plugging away. He said, ‘I’m thinking about adding you to my staff. Would this be something that you are interested in?’ It was something I needed to think about. He came back to me again probably about several weeks later and we talked more about this position and what he is looking for in terms of adding another voice and another experienced person to his staff. I have a lot of relationships with people at this organization. I have a lot of respect for what he has already built and the organization’s trajectory. It was a good time for me to turn the keys over to someone else to run the Indiana Fever. It’s been a great joy of mine. It’s something that I put my heart and soul into and the next chapter is going into the NBA, taking the experiences that I’ve learned into the league.

You’ve been with the Fever since it’s expansion in 1999 and through the 2012 championship team. How do you plan on taking those experiences and applying them into this role?

I still have a lot to learn in the NBA world— the players in the league. Kevin and I, we have some things that he has talked to me about that he wants me to think about in terms of how they are building their team now and the culture. There’s a lot of early on-boarding although a lot of the systems are very similar but there’s an NBA culture and game that I’m not going to act like I am familiar with. I have a lot of experience in terms of putting together my own teams, my own staffs, going through the heartaches that you have when you run your own franchise. I understand that part of it and hopefully I can bring some level of experience and weigh in on some of the decisions as we continue to build the Pacers.

The Pacers are one of the hot teams in the league, cemented by Victor Oladipo. What have you seen in your time being alongside the Pacers organization?

The roster that Kevin, Chad Buchanan, and Peter Dinwiddie have put together is tremendous. There is so much depth on this team. There’s a feeling that you have around this Pacers team that reminds me of some of our teams in the past with the Fever. Sometimes the most talented, big time names don’t win championships. It’s the teams that have great culture and great people. This has been something that Kevin’s really talk to me about. It’s important to him—building this culture of trust and a place where players want to come and play. I’m excited by the depth of talent. There’s a lot of really, nice young players and a couple experienced veterans. There’s just a nice variety of depth that, as you saw, when Victor was out of the lineup, this group did very well.

The Pacers now have you and Tamika Catchings in the front office. Talk about being at the forefront as two women at the front office of an NBA team…

It’s something that I don’t think about a lot. When you’re busy you put your head down to work and try to achieve big things in your own right. The significance of women in what would be seen as non-traditional roles is important. It helps the next generation think about it. If you have the basketball skill, acumen, the passion, and the experience level to help the team, it shouldn’t matter about gender. I think that’s what we are starting to see. Now the WNBA is 22 years old. I’m first generation front office executive at the NBA. All of my experience came from building by own teams, walking down the hall and asking Donny Walsh or Larry Bird for advice. Rod Thorn was one of my early mentors there in the league office. [Tamika and I] had a chance to learn from some of those guys as we are running our own teams. That’s an important piece of the trajectory of where women can go in the sport of basketball.

Who are those role models or those key people helping you drive your career toward where you are now?

Early on, when I first arrived in Indianapolis and Donnie Walsh was running the Pacers, he was a great mentor to me. When I was at the league office, Ron Thorn was somebody who really served as a mentor in terms of the overall game, the nuances, what we were looking for at the WNBA and what was happening in the NBA. Larry Bird was a great influence and support. When I was building the teams here in Indiana, I would go to his office and get his advice. These are guys that have been in the NBA for a long time. What I realized is that we are all doing the same thing. It’s just that the guys have been enjoying a lot longer.

What is your message to people who like to say that women don’t belong in these roles… what is your message to them as a person who has been in this league and who has worked around this game for over 20 years?

I think in due time, everything evolves. This is an evolving society where men are seen in women’s roles and women are in men’s roles. At the end of the day, I think that for everyone that achieves something and does it well, they want that next chapter to be because they are the best and are experienced not because of their gender. I give my hat off to the Pacers and this organization for looking around and saying, ‘we have somebody right here in our organization that we can add to our staff.’