From left, moderator Mark Graham, AH&LA CEO Katherine Lugar, AGA CEO Geoff Freeman and NRF CEO Matthew Shay at Thursday's CEO Update Live: Changemakers event at the Loews Madison Hotel.

Heads of NRF, AH&LA and AGA transformed their organizations but took different routes to align members behind them

Feb. 11, 2016
By William Ehart

Matthew Shay, Katherine Lugar and Geoff Freeman entered the groups they now lead at different times and under different circumstances.

But change was needed at each, and the three prominent association CEOs discussed how they proceeded and how they ensured board backing at the CEO Update Live: Changemakers event Thursday morning at the Loews Madison Hotel in downtown Washington, D.C. CEO Update Managing Director Mark Graham moderated the event.

The condition of the $11 million-revenue American Hotel & Lodging Association was a mixed blessing for Lugar when she arrived in 2013: Membership and revenues were declining, but the board clearly understood that the organization had to change.

Lugar, previously top lobbyist for the $19 million-revenue Retail Industry Leaders Association, said she carefully sounded out the AH&LA search committee—as well as other members—about expectations.

"I said talk to me about what you think is needed," Lugar related to more than 60 association executives and others at the event. "What kind of changes do you envision? What does success look like?"

Even then, board members at organizations as diverse as AH&LA are not going to agree on everything, she said

"People want to be heard and they want to be listened to," Lugar said. "As long as you can say, ‘We're going to disagree on this point,' I find that really goes a long way."

During Lugar's tenure, AH&LA membership has grown 170 percent and PAC contributions have risen 250 percent, Graham noted.

The $11 million-revenue American Gaming Association, headed by Freeman, and the $61 million-revenue National Retail Federation, run by Shay, are also groups with a diverse membership.

But Freeman, following a successful longtime predecessor, encountered casino moguls such as Sheldon Adelson who had blunt questions about what AGA could do for them when he joined in 2013. The group was founded to keep the federal government from getting too involved in the gambling industry, and members felt they themselves—with help from friendly politicians such as U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, the former majority leader—were achieving that goal, Freeman said.

"My challenge was twofold: Finding common cause between members and giving them a sense that the association could do something.

"What we've done pretty effectively is focus on low-hanging fruit to have some early successes that give the membership some sense of accomplishment, some sense that there's a formula here that works," Freeman said.

Membership is now up 50 percent and AGA has added tribal gambling companies for the first time, Graham said.

Getting buy-in
At NRF, under Shay since 2010, revenue and membership have doubled, Graham said.

Shay said he set out a basic vision to the search committee, and knew he had its support when it hired him.

"They said, ‘What do you think?' And I said the retail industry has an enormous economic footprint across the country but it does not have an advocacy footprint in Washington to match that. We should be fighting above our weight class. Instead, we're fighting below our weight class.

"I said I'm no genius, that's what I think, and they bought into it. And then we knew we were on the right track."

Read more of the panelists' insight on change leadership in the Feb. 19 print edition.