August 19, 2024
Correction: A previous version of this article included comments stating that the Medical Imaging Technology Alliance (MITA) had left the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) and joined AdvaMed. NEMA says the group MITA remains a division of its organization. Patrick Hope, former executive director of MITA, joined AdvaMed late last year to lead its newly created division, AdvaMed Imaging. Spokespeople for NEMA and AdvaMed gave CEO Update contradictory accounts of how many of MITA’s staff followed Hope to AdvaMed and how many MITA members have left to join AdvaMed Imaging.
CEO Scott Whitaker came to the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) eight years ago with a growth mindset.
Early in his tenure, he led the acquisition of The MedTech Conference, where attendance has grown by about two-thirds.
Then, early this year, AdvaMed created a new medical imaging technology division, AdvaMed Imaging, with companies who were previously members of the Medical Imaging Technology Alliance (MITA), a division of the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA). This decision, which several MITA board members supported, matched Whitaker’s desire for AdvaMed to represent the entire, rapidly advancing medical technology industry.
Whitaker started in Washington, D.C., as an intern opening mail during his senior year in college and ultimately became a domestic policy adviser for the Senate Republican leadership. He rose to chief of staff of the Department of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush from 2003 to 2005, then became COO of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, where he worked until he joined AdvaMed as CEO in 2016.
Whitaker absorbed much from high-energy, visionary bosses such as former Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.) and former HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson, the former governor of Wisconsin.
“I spent 10 years on the Hill. You learn a lot about politics and a lot about policy. I came to D.C. because I enjoy politics. I stayed because I love policy,” Whitaker told CEO Update during a video call.
Following are excerpts from the interview, edited for length and clarity:
CEO Update: Was bringing on (medical imaging) a longstanding goal of yours, or was it a surprise when (MITA) board members advocated it?
Scott Whitaker: One of the long-term goals that I’ve had is to unify the medical technology industry. The industry has grown and evolved tremendously over the course of the last 10 years. Because of the diversity of companies, because of the diversity of technologies, and because of the different types of work that traditional medical device companies do now, it seemed better to have everyone aligned. But getting the imaging companies in here was really driven by the members themselves.
CU: How many new members came to AdvaMed as a result?
SW: We are up to 35 new members now. We’re six months into the full integration. I expect over the rest of this year we’ll have more than that.
CU: How is the integration of MITA and its nine staff going?
SW: It’s come together really well. The team is fully here at AdvaMed now. We’ve integrated them into the staff and the culture. Our companies are very happy with it as well, which is even more important. And we have a lot of work going on in that space. The reality is that the way the industry has diversified and grown in recent years, there was already a lot of activity and collaboration with us. To integrate them fully into the AdvaMed community was pretty easy.
CU: How is this helping with your overall advocacy?
SW: The value of unifying the industry is in one sense the ability to tell the story of the entire industry and harness the power of the entire medical technology community on issues that impact us all in the health care space. In this town, your influence is oftentimes dependent upon how well policymakers understand you as an industry and the depth and the breadth of work you do in an industry segment. With the imaging companies here, we’re able to tell the full story of medical technology versus telling the story of one aspect of medical technology. We’re really the backbone of the health care industry.
CU: Early in your tenure, AdvaMed acquired The MedTech Conference. Has that been a success and why did you pursue that?
SW: It’s been a tremendous success. Bringing it in-house brought two opportunities for us. One was to increase our revenues. That revenue helps us with our advocacy work. The second was to more fully integrate the association with the day-to-day activities of the conference and the education work that we do for those who attended it. We’ve grown the revenues about 50% since I got here. The conference attendance has grown significantly as well, to about 3,300 people from about 2,000.
CU: That increases your relevance to the industry, right?
SW: That’s right. We want to be known for what we are, which is more than just a lobbying organization or a trade organization. Whether it’s the education that we do, or the conference we run — which allows for businesses to showcase evolving technologies — or whether it’s the direct advocacy we do, we want to make sure we’re doing all those things. If you’re doing all those things, not only are you going to stay relevant, but you’re going to be a critical piece of the success of every company in the industry.
CU: You mentioned culture. What kind of culture do you want to foster?
SW: Culture is really important. I try to keep our team focused on a bold vision that delivers results that match that vision. We’re a very driven senior leadership group that is focused on delivering results that help our companies be successful. We don’t want to be an association that becomes a think tank. We want to think about big problems but move quickly to solve those problems so our companies can be more successful in the marketplace. We’re not focused on having conversations over and over but on delivering results, whether it’s new legislation, whether it’s a new regulation, whether it’s a new set of principles to define the future of health care, whatever it is.
CU: What did you learn on the Hill and during your time at HHS?
SW: On the Hill, you realize you have a real impact on the free enterprise system in this country, and it makes a difference in people’s lives. When I moved to HHS, it was a great experience because we were running a very, very large bureaucracy. And it was there that I began to understand the complexity of organizations and the power of a strong organization to make a change in people’s lives as well. At HHS, it was very difficult to move that ship far. And what you learned is that you had to use the tools of the organization that were established there to make some progress. But you also at times had to use the leverage of political strength to force change when the department might not want to move.
CU: Who was Secretary of Health and Human Services during your time there?
SW: Tommy Thompson. A great guy. He used to say that if you’re defending the status quo, you’re taking up too much space. And there’s a lot of truth in that. People can just defend the status quo to the point of not doing anything.
CU: I would think that a lot of trade associations spend a lot of time defending the status quo.
SW: It’s not always bad. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t. The trick is moving your members. If you’re not satisfied with the status quo and you want to make some change, you have to influence the members. And you have to lead toward an outcome. Consensus doesn’t mean don’t do anything. Consensus means find a pathway so everyone can get behind an idea in concept.
CU: A lot has changed in politics since you were a top aide to Sen. Don Nickles.
SW: Politics has changed more outside the Beltway than it has inside the Beltway. What you see on TV and what you see on social media leaves you with the impression that absolutely nothing ever gets done and it’s only fighting. But there are still things that get done in this town. There are a lot of consensus policies that get done under the radar. We’ve been able to focus on issues that really matter to our industry and drive bipartisan consensus. You just have to adapt. I can spend all day complaining about politics in D.C. That does no good. It certainly doesn’t help my companies.
CU: You were finally able to get the medical device tax repealed in 2019. It was supposed to help fund Obamacare, but you won repeal with Rep. Nancy Pelosi (R-Calif.) as Speaker of the House.
SW: We began to make the case before I got here and then built on it. It was not about Obamacare. The issue was, that was bad tax policy and had a direct impact on job creation, which then had a direct impact on the health care system and people’s lives. It became very clear what was going to happen: It was going to be decided by four people (the leaders of the House and Senate). We focused all our time and attention on those four individuals and their offices and made the case and we ended up being successful.
CU: Are you planning any other acquisitions?
SW: We’re always looking to grow and we’re always looking to unify. So, other industries that touch ours, or other associations that are in our space, we always look for ways to work together. We have built what we call our Digital Health Tech division, which we launched this year. It’s a new function of the organization to capture the traditional consumer technology and information technology companies and align them with the traditional medical device and medical technology companies to focus on artificial intelligence and digital work in health care. We now have Google and Amazon and Microsoft and Apple who have come joined our membership to make it even broader.
CU: How are the advances in artificial intelligence affecting your industry, and how are you navigating the public policy aspect of it?
SW: In the imaging space, it’s going to lead to better diagnoses, better understanding of disease states earlier, allowing doctors to intervene and either cure or treat diseases and save the health care system, potentially, a lot of money and save a lot of lives along the way. It’s going to be dramatic. It’s going to require us working with other associations and other industries to make sure we’re getting it right. There’s the privacy aspect of it, then there’s interoperability. We need to work with other industries, including hospitals, doctors’ groups and the consumer technology industry, as well, to make sure we’re all aligned on what those standards are. What happens with the information, how do you collect the information, how is it protected? And how do you use that information to improve patient outcomes? We cannot do it on our own. We will lead much of that and try to establish what those standards are. But the whole health care community has to rally around this and try to get it right.
UP CLOSE WITH SCOTT WHITAKER
A different court: As much as he demonstrates a can-do attitude, Whitaker’s career in Washington, D.C., began after he realized what he couldn’t do: Play as a starter for Palm Beach Atlantic University's basketball team. After his coach informed the 6’1” point guard he’d likely ride the bench the following season, Whitaker, a political science major, took a semester in the nation’s capital.
Follow the bouncing ball: While Whitaker didn’t make it in college hoops, his eldest son has reached the pro level working in the front office for the Detroit Pistons. Yes, Whitaker gets good tickets out of it, but unfortunately, the Pistons have one of the worst records in basketball.
Another era: Whitaker interned on Capitol Hill for Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla., then rose from mail clerk to legislative assistant. He then followed Nickles when he became Assistant Senate Majority Leader and advised him on health care. Though Nickles was a conservative, Whitaker quipped, “By today’s standards, he may be a leftist.”
Words of wisdom: Whitaker advises fellow association leaders to be humble and authentic, to have vision but be results oriented, and be great listeners. “In this town and in this business, you need to listen to understand and not listen to respond.”
Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed)
Members: AdvaMed represents global companies that make everything from surgical gloves and masks to artificial-intelligence-enabled diagnostic machines. Membership has grown to more than 500 from just over 300 companies in Whitaker’s tenure as CEO.
Headquarters: The association’s main office is at 1301 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Suite 400, between the White House and the Capitol. It also has offices in Europe, India, China, Brazil and Japan.
Staff: More than 90.
From IRS 990 ending Dec. 31, 2022
Revenue: $48 million
Net assets: $17 million
Salaries: $24 million
For additional information, including salaries, visit Association Insight, powered by Association TRENDS and CEO Update.
Former Gov. Mark Parkinson is the last of his era in some ways but has been perfect for his time as CEO of the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL).
The Kansas Republican-turned-Democrat is a centrist in a time of extreme polarization. And he’s aware that politicians like himself are increasingly rare as association leaders — and likely to remain so if actual governing remains out of fashion.
But Parkinson has something that most politicians who become association leaders don’t: experience in and a passion for the industry he represents. As the Republican Party in the Sunflower State moved to the right during his time as a representative and later senator in the state legislature, he found himself drawn to the senior living industry.
“I was one of the leaders of the moderate Republicans, and we were just getting crushed,” he told CEO Update. “I decided to leave politics and spend the rest of my life owning and running long-term care facilities.”
And that’s what he and his wife, Stacy, were doing until 2006 when they were presented with a buyout offer from the largest company in the sector that was too good to refuse.
That same year, Democrat Kathleen Sebelius, running for re-election as governor of Kansas, asked Parkinson to run as her lieutenant governor. They took office in 2007, and Parkinson became governor in 2009 when President Barack Obama tapped Sebelius to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Now, after a leading AHCA/NCAL since 2011, Parkinson is planning to retire by early 2025. (Heidrick & Struggles Senior Advisor Denise Grant is assisting in the search for his replacement.)
CEO Update interviewed the outgoing CEO via Zoom. Following are excerpts from the interview edited for length and clarity.
CEO Update: You are in your 14th year at AHCA/NCAL. How have you changed the organization in your tenure?
Mark Parkinson: The most important thing is that when I came to Washington, D.C., back in 2011, two major trade associations for skilled nursing were very active in political and lobbying efforts. The 16 largest members had left AHCA back in 2002 or 2003 [and formed the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care]. And it wasn’t working to have two different voices. My most important priority when I started was trying to bring the two groups together. It took a couple of years to merge the two organizations, but once we achieved that, everything fell into place.
CU: How did you bring them back together?
MP: By the time I came on the scene, they were largely not getting along with each other. Sometimes they had mixed messages up on the Hill, and we consistently were not getting good policy results. My message to the members, both our members and the members of the Alliance was, ‘We’re going to keep losing or we can figure out a way to bring everybody together and give ourselves a fighting chance.’ And it wasn’t that I had great leadership skills. The sector got tired of losing. They probably did need somebody who was an independent voice to come in. Since then, we’ve been on an incredible run organizationally. AHCA has never been stronger.
CU: What policy outcomes were not going the industry’s way because of the mixed messages?
MP: In 2011, we experienced the largest cut from [the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] in the history of the sector. Our (provider payment) rates were cut by almost 12% in a single year. Since we came back together in 2013, we’ve had Medicare increases every single year, even though there are folks who believe that our rates should be cut. On top of that, we’ve had a complete change in our payment model that we’ve been able to navigate through successfully. And then the most important success that we’ve had is that during the pandemic, which was the worst period in the history of long-term care, we were able to help navigate the members through the clinical challenges that they faced. And we were able to get the policymakers in D.C. to provide the funding that providers needed to be able to stay open.
CU: Did your background as an operator and developer of these facilities help you with your credibility in bringing the two groups back together?
MP: My wife and I built, owned and operated assisted living and skilled nursing facilities. We worked in them for 10 years. We have a real understanding of what our members are thinking about, what they’re worried about, what they’re excited about, what they need. The other thing that has helped has been my political background. I’ve been a Republican, I’ve been a Democrat, but I’ve always been moderate. To succeed in Kansas as a Democratic governor, you’re working with a very Republican legislature, you’ve got to figure out how to bring people along who disagree with you on a lot of different issues but are willing to work together for the greater good.
CU: Politics have changed just a bit since your time in office, both in Kansas and nationally.
MP: One of the things that is unfortunate about how partisan politics has become is that I don’t know if politicians can become trade association CEOs anymore. It’s so divided, I’m not sure how you hire a Republican or a Democrat and it works out. I hope that’s not the case because we need great people running these associations. But I’m probably kind of the last of the era where people got along with everybody, and we figured things out together.
CU: What has been the biggest challenge in your association tenure?
MP: The biggest challenge for an association CEO is holding the membership together. Most of the CEOs that I’ve met in town are really good at the policy stuff. That’s an important skill and I don't want to minimize it. But the huge challenge that I think makes the job fun is just holding the members together. And that’s where I see a lot of association CEOs who don’t work out. In our space, we have incredible diversity of members. We have very large companies, we have very small companies. We have for-profits, we have not-for-profits. We have those that are doing very well financially, we have those who are on the verge of bankruptcy. And then we’re just very, very blessed that a large number of our members know exactly how to run an association and what policies and lobbying tactics we should follow. I’m being facetious. But to hold those folks together, to gently explain to people that want to do crazy stuff, that it would be crazy, that’s the biggest challenge.
CU: What are the biggest risks you’ve taken?
MP: The biggest risk that I took was when we started at AHCA — I say we because I was able to bring a few people from Kansas who have worked with me for a long time — I made the decision that I was going to take whatever risks needed to be taken to make the association as good as I could, even if it would create challenges for me. We had some really great people at AHCA when I came, but I quickly realized that there were some changes that I needed to make, and sometimes you have to make changes among staff members who are popular with your association members. But I ultimately decided that if I didn’t get the right people on the bus, the organization wasn’t going to work. So, I went through a very painful first couple of years of getting the right people on the bus. If you don’t do that, you’re going to have a very hard time succeeding.
CU: How did you identify the right people? Did you use recruiters?
MP: I’m bad at hiring people. I have proven that over the years. I rely upon people who are good at it to help and run that process. We have used outside recruiters in some situations. We have staff who have been good at identifying people who would become superstars. We found people in this sector who no longer wanted to work for operators but wanted to work more on the national scene and we’ve gotten some incredible people that way.
CU: How do you help employees advance their careers and grow?
MP: One of our core values is continuous leadership and continuous improvement. We have people on our team who are really good about it, making sure that people are advancing their careers, going to webinars and seminars and retreats and learning how to become better at what they do. Our leadership team is very focused on helping people advance in their careers, even if it means that ultimately, they’re going to leave our organization. It’s something we commit to when we hire people.
CU: What advice do you have for younger association CEOs and those aspiring to the position?
MP: You have to be honest with the members. Members want us to be able to do everything and accomplish everything, and their wish list can be very long. Many of the things they want us to accomplish are important but many of them are not possible for us to achieve. You have to be honest as to what can be achieved so that expectations are set properly, and you can be working on the right things. If you tell the members that you can achieve impossible stuff, you end up spending time and resources doing things that aren’t going to work out.
CU: Why is this the right year for you to retire, and what are your plans going forward?
MP: I’ll be 67 when I retire and I wanted to retire at a time where, first of all, I was still close to my peak performance as a CEO. I’m definitely not at my peak performance right now. I know there are things where I’m not as good as I used to be. I’m close enough that I can fake it. I have been faking it a little bit for the last year or two and I feel like it’s time to move on. Second, I wanted to leave at a time when I can still do some other things, whether it’s in the association world or in the political world.
UP CLOSE WITH MARK PARKINSON
A Hill to start on: Taking a year between undergraduate studies at Wichita State University and law school at the University of Kansas School of Law, Parkinson went “door to door” on Capitol Hill and landed a job as a legislative assistant to former Rep. William Green (R-N.Y.).
Turning points: As a young attorney, Parkinson volunteered at a hospice facility. “I had the incredible privilege of being assigned to people in the last six months of their lives,” he said. Ten years later, on a visit as a state senator to a hospice, he urged his wife, Stacy, to rush right over. “I think we need to build one of these,” he said.
Off to the races: Parkinson and his wife own shares in racehorses through a syndicate. Two years ago, one of the horses, a colt named Mo Donegal, won the Belmont Stakes and placed fifth in the Kentucky Derby.
Words of wisdom: Two essential leadership skills for association CEOs are listening to members (“who know more about what they need than we do back here in D.C.”) and humility, Parkinson said. “There’s just no reason for trade association CEOs to be bragging or boastful or taking credit for stuff,” he said.
American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living
Members: AHCA/NCAL advocates for large and small for-profit and nonprofit members representing more than 14,000 facilities, mostly skilled nursing centers for the elderly and assisted living communities.
Headquarters: The association’s current headquarters is at 1201 L Street NW in downtown Washington, D.C., but the group is moving to a smaller location near Capitol Hill this fall.
Staff: 101.
From IRS 990 ending Dec. 31, 2022
Revenue: $44 million
Net assets: $26 million
Salaries: $21 million
For additional information, including salaries, visit Association Insight, powered by Association TRENDS and CEO Update.
David Chavern, CEO of the $20 million-revenue Consumer Brands Association (CBA) since 2022, brings a wealth of experience representing an array of industries to the role. He also offers the perspectives of the lawyer and MBA that he is, combining storytelling and analytical qualities.
Chavern held several positions representing the overall business community under former U.S. Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue, who taught him to confront members’ biggest problems. For most of his 10-year career there, he was executive vice president and chief operating officer, managing 500 staff and national and international advocacy efforts.
In 2015, he took on the challenging position of chief advocate for news publishers as CEO of the News/Media Alliance, battling today’s winner-take-all internet platforms like Google and Facebook over what they would pay to news content producers as the news business was being hollowed out.
When he was recruited to lead Consumer Brands, which represents the manufacturers of packaged goods including food and beverages, the association was still recovering from a disastrous period in 2017. Then known as the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), the group lost major members like Nestlé and Campbell Soup, which favored Obama-era food-labeling mandates opposed by the association.
CEO Update spoke to Chavern via Zoom from his office in the Rosslyn neighborhood of Arlington, Va. The folks behind the Room Rater account on X (formerly known as Twitter) — where people’s Zoom backgrounds are critiqued and scored — likely would have been impressed by Chavern’s vintage guitar, signed by members of The Allman Brothers Band. (Chavern doesn’t play: “I gave up torturing myself.”)
Following are excerpts from the interview edited for length and clarity.
CEO Update: You’ve got some big companies rejoining the association, and some new ones coming in. How are you accomplishing that?
David Chavern: Somebody needs to tell the story about the companies that make the stuff in the grocery store and the drugstore. There has been a hole there; nobody else has represented them collectively. So, part of it is being an aggressive spokesperson and then conveying my vision of the future of the organization, which is bright. There are a lot of issues ahead of us.
CU: I see Kellogg, Diageo, Kraft Heinz, Traditional Medicinals and Kimberly Clark are among those joining this year. Which companies are new, and which are coming back?
DC: Diageo and Traditional Medicinals are brand new to the whole space. Most of the other ones are coming back from what had been GMA. We’ve got some more to go but I’m confident in our ability to get there.
CU: Isn’t Diageo a liquor company?
DC: They’re best known as a spirits company. But what you see in the beverage space is a lot of companies slowly getting into other categories. And a lot of their issues are the same — selling, packaging, sustainability, federal regulatory issues, engagement with retailers. They saw that we could deliver some good value for them.
CU: What’s different now versus the time when companies like Nestlé and Campbell Soup left GMA in 2017 over issues like food labeling?
DC: I haven’t done a lot of investigative work on GMA. I’m forward-looking. This is a consumer-focused industry, and everything we do is about what is ultimately best for the consumer. There was a lot of complexity to the old GMA. We try to keep things simple, run toward the hardest problems, and deliver bang for our buck, and that’s being recognized by members.
CU: Campbell Soup rejoined in 2020. Is there a chance to bring Nestlé back? (Note: CBA announced after this interview was conducted that Nestlé had rejoined.)
DC: I’m hoping to get them and everybody else back. We’re going to get the band back together. I don’t want to get into individual discussions. I’ll just say I’m optimistic about our future and getting all the major companies in the space back.
CU: Former CEO Geoff Freeman made a lot of changes, bringing some of the departed members back and rebranding GMA as CBA. How has the group changed under your tenure?
DC: GMA had its problems and ran into a tough spot. But some companies were ready, willing and able to fund a reboot of it. And that doesn’t always happen. Trade associations can go away and then new ones pop up. But they wanted to fund a reboot and they did a really good job of sort of building the scaffolding for a great association with a new brand and mission, and I was brought on board to drive growth. I feel like I’m starting at a pretty good place. One of our big goals is to invest in the understanding of the brand. Consumer Brands Association is still a relatively new name in Washington, and we want to improve understanding of who we represent so that we don’t have to refer back to GMA.
CU: I remember hearing even before you came on board that CBA wanted to invest in major new initiatives. Are you still planning to, and what might those be?
DC: I worked for Tom Donohue (at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce) for 10 years and one of the things he always said was to run at the hardest problems: Figure out what your members’ hardest problems are and run toward them. Some of the big, complicated things members are wrestling with are state-related: packaging, recycling and state regulatory initiatives around additives and chemicals. And then you have a whole range of federal issues. There’s really bad framing around inflation and the consumer products business. Politicians like to be pointing fingers at us and I think that’s not correct. So, part of it is being a voice for companies trying to drive facts into the discussion and tell the big story about the role of the industry in the economy.
CU: So, the association is investing in state advocacy?
DC: We already have a pretty engaged state advocacy network, and that’s going to be a place where we’re going to be investing because the explosion of state work is going to continue. That’s true for a lot of businesses.
CU: Tell me about SmartLabel. How long has that been around? Is it successful?
DFC: It has been successful. It started before my time. But it is a QR code on a lot of packages. That is an entryway for consumers to get a ton of information about the product. We’re leaning into the idea of real transparency with the consumers. We want to tell the consumer whatever they want to know about the product. A package is a limited environment in which to convey information. It’s a product I’m excited about. It’s had moderate growth, but we think its time has come so I want it to have radical growth.
Is it something that you own and get revenue from?
DC: It’s essentially a standard that we own, a product that we own, and we get licensing income from it. It’s not huge at the moment, but it could certainly be huge, and we’d like it to be huge.
CU: You mentioned sustainability. How are you addressing that issue? Do you have a position on sustainability?
DC: Every one of my members has commitments to reduce the use of virgin plastic. That’s not a controversial take. What you come up against is cost and convenience for the consumer. If you drive a bunch of packaging solutions that radically increase the cost for the consumer, or make the product inconvenient or spoil quickly, that’s a bad outcome for the consumer. So, we want to promote effective recycling across the United States. This is hard because there are (about) 10,000 recycling systems across the U.S. and a lot of variability as to how effective they are.
CU: What are the biggest challenges you’ve had to overcome as a leader?
DC: Probably our biggest challenge is just brand understanding and awareness, and we can fix that. I want it to be easily understood by people who Consumer Brands is. In terms of the biggest challenges in my career, I’ve tried to take on the biggest problems in front of me. When I represented news publishers, that was about taking on the biggest companies in our economy, Google and Facebook, and sort of demanding a fair deal (regarding compensation for news content on the platforms). That remains a challenge for the industry.
CU: How do you get policymakers to instantly recognize who you represent?
DC: Be everywhere I can be talking about our business. It’s as simple as going to a cocktail party in Washington and not having to explain through sentences what Consumer Brands brands is, and we’re getting there. It takes me being out there out in front talking relentlessly about the industry.
CU: What do you see as the most important leadership traits in an association leader?
DC: The obvious one is storytelling. This is a storytelling business. It’s telling the great story about the industry you represent and telling that to the media and to policymakers, sometimes telling it to the people in the industry to give them a sense of their own importance. A precursor to storytelling is listening to members very carefully.
CU: When recruiters or job opportunities come along, how do you assess what’s the right association for you to run?
DC: You have to find some space where you think you’ll have a passion for it and an energy for it, something you can really get behind not only intellectually but emotionally. And if you interview for a job, how do you get along with the people interviewing you? Does it seem like people that you can work with, people you trust, people who come with some understanding about what you do? Because you want to have a good understanding of what your bosses want and need, and feel like you can work through complicated things with them.
CU: You’ve had varied experiences going back to the Chamber, the Export-Import Bank and law firm Buchanan Ingersoll. What career experiences do you draw on as you make decisions and develop your management style?
DC: Being a lawyer taught me a lot. It gave me a lot of discipline around writing. I write a lot. I write a note to my board every Friday. I crank out a lot of material. I write fast and a lot of that came from my experience and discipline as a lawyer. Going to business school is great for the analytical parts of it. You’ll be able to tear down a balance sheet and see how you’re doing and do that with some credibility. I’ve learned something from every boss I’ve ever had, even the bad bosses. Managing a bunch of lawyers at Ex-Im Bank was complicated. It taught me the importance of both listening and giving people a common vision.
CU: Where do you see yourself in five years?
DC: Running one of the most impactful trade associations in Washington, D.C., which I firmly believe Consumer Brands will be. We’re gonna get this place rockin’ and rollin’.
UP CLOSE WITH DAVID CHAVERN
Well-rounded education: After getting his bachelor’s degrees in economics and fine arts at the University of Pittsburgh, Chavern earned a law degree from Villanova University, also in Pennsylvania. But that wasn’t enough: He later earned his MBA from Georgetown University and was valedictorian of his class.
Sci-fi fan: Though grounded in reality for his day job, Chavern is a science-fiction buff. “The ‘Foundation’ books by Isaac Asimov set the tone for everything else. ‘Dune’ is derived from them. ‘Star Wars’ is derived from them.”
Startup investor: Chavern is a founding investor in companies including Column, which gathers data on and helps manage postings of public notices online, and Starling Trust Sciences, which develops technical tools for measuring the internal culture of organizations.
Words of wisdom: “Always understand your members’ biggest problems and always be thinking about how you can address them.”
CEO Stephen Sandherr also says decisiveness was key to his success in leadership role.
It’s nearly 3,000 miles from Walla Walla, Wash., to Washington, D.C. And an educational background in English literature, music and economics from the University of Puget Sound may not immediately suggest a career start on Capitol Hill. But it makes sense when you consider Heidi Brock’s current role, as CEO of the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA), which represents manufacturers of wood and paper products.
With a family background in forestry — her grandfather owned a small tree farm — Brock worked on environmental and natural resources issues for Sens. Daniel Evans and Slade Gorton, both Republicans representing Washington State. She then kicked off an 18-year career at timber, land and forest products giant Weyerhaeuser as manager of government affairs, rising to vice president of federal and international affairs.
Brock got into association leadership as chief staff executive of the Aluminum Association in 2011, succeeding longtime leader Steve Larkin. But she returned to her roots in 2019 to lead AF&PA, this time succeeding another long-tenured CEO, Donna Harman.
“Heidi Brock is an outstanding leader with a long career in advocacy,” her nomination for CEO Update and Association TRENDS Association CEO of the Year reads. “She is a strategic thinker, able to bring together diverse perspectives to strengthen the paper and wood products industry. She is a role model for young professionals, demonstrating the importance of work-life balance daily. She prioritizes safety and wellness within the organization and seeks opportunities to have challenging discussions around diversity, equity and inclusion.”
CEO Update interviewed Brock via Zoom from her home on a recent snowy day. Below are excerpts from the interview, edited for length and clarity.
How would you describe your tenure with the association and the changes that you’ve made?
I was fortunate to step into a very strong organization with strong membership support, strong board commitment to the purpose of the organization, and a very strong staff. But then six months into the job, we had a pandemic. So, one of the changes is that we’re more agile as an organization. We’re more nimble. I am so proud of how our team was able to execute safely and effectively in a remote work environment and do tremendous things on behalf of our members, especially in those early days of the pandemic when every day was a new day. One of the things we worked on then was including our industry as an essential industry. We’re much more agile but it’s important to remind our team of the purpose that drives us, and how much we value being a partner and a thought leader on policy because that’s really what our superpower is, policy influence for the industry.
You have followed long-tenured CEOs like Steve Larkin (at the Aluminum Association) and Donna Harman at AF&PA and achieved success. What do you attribute that to?
It’s so important to honor the past and look to what’s changing in the future. I am proud to say I continue to have good relationships with both Steve and Donna. They’re good friends. My advice to incoming CEOs is to stay curious because those were two leaders who cared a lot about their industries. They had years of experience and they had been through a lot with their members. Being able to tap that knowledge is invaluable.
You must have to listen very closely to the board for any cues on how much change they want.
Definitely. They were certainly open to ideas for change. But boy, when you’re going down that path, you want to make sure that you’re clear on what you don’t want to lose.
Where do you stand now in terms of a hybrid work environment?
We’re in a hybrid environment right now and that’s working for us. We’re working to be a bit more office-centric without being full-time, and keeping a lot of flexibility for our team. Because everybody’s circumstances are a bit different. So, trying to look at what’s an equitable approach but also what is an approach that is supportive, where we can be, of people’s situations.
How many days a week are AF&PA staff in the office now?
I’m in the office every day that I’m not traveling — unless I have a snow day, like today (laughs). But we’ve asked team members to be in at least two days a week.
Have you been able to increase membership?
We have. It’s been exciting to see how engaged the industry is. Our industry has a long record of understanding the role that government plays because we’re highly regulated. They want to provide a thoughtful voice. We have grown membership significantly over the last five years, having welcomed more than 16 new members into the association.
In a 2013 interview, you said it was getting harder to get things done in Washington, D.C., with the middle ground disappearing. It’s only gotten worse. How are you dealing with that?
It can feel challenging when you read the news, but where I get a lot of energy and optimism is when I go up to Capitol Hill and I sit down with Republicans and Democrats and talk about our issues. So often, you would not know which party you’re speaking to. They are so united, especially when they represent a district where one of our paper mills has been a community partner for many years or even generations. They know what comes by way of the tax revenue, the jobs, the community support. These are outstanding, living wage jobs. So, both parties are committed to finding workable solutions.
How do you strike the right balance on environmental and industry issues?
When you’re working with policymakers, make sure that you’re listening carefully and looking for common ground, and that you’re bringing science and data to the conversation wherever possible. Those are essential.
You are vice president of the International Council of Forest & Paper Associations. Tell us about that organization.
I will be stepping into the chair role in the summer. The Council is made up of colleagues who run paper and wood products associations around the world. There are 16 member associations representing 27 countries. We partner with one another to identify trends or issues. We meet in person at least once a year and virtually two or three times throughout the year. It’s a valuable way to tap into the expertise of colleagues who are dealing with similar trends or dynamics around the world. One of the exciting things we’ve done in the last several years is, we have a program called the Blue Sky Young Researchers Innovation Awards. Last year, our annual meeting was in Amsterdam, and we presented three young researchers with awards in recognition for the work they’re doing to help solve some of the greatest climate-change challenges. We’re trying to plant the seeds for future innovation in the industry.
Where do you see yourself in five years?
In five years, we’ll be close to our 2030 sustainability goals. We’ll be celebrating that success, and we will be celebrating our 35th anniversary as an association. We just celebrated our 30th anniversary. We’re going to have a lot of things to celebrate, and I expect to be joining in those celebrations.
Where do you think the next generation of association leaders is going to come from?
I am so optimistic. There are many places for those leaders to come from, including from association members themselves. My years at Weyerhaeuser (and my MBA) gave me the business acumen that I need to run a business, or at least to know the questions that I should be asking in running an organization like this. It also gave me the experience of what it’s like for a company to rely on its trade association, because Weyerhaeuser was a member of many associations. So, that membership network will be in place, but we all need to think openly and creatively about where our talent will come from. The future is bright if your organization has a strong mission and sense of purpose that’s going to speak to a young person. In the leadership role I play with the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE), I’m seeing a lot of exciting leadership coming through from the members of ASAE, as well.
You are chair-elect of ASAE and a board member at DC Central Kitchen. What are the benefits of volunteering like that?
It’s a wonderful way to give back, and whenever I’ve had the chance to serve on a board, I have learned so much from the leader of that organization. In DC Central Kitchen’s case, it’s Mike Curtin and he’s a tremendous leader. Then with ASAE, it’s an exciting opportunity to work with Michele Mason and support her. I feel like the association community has given me a really rich part of my career. If I can help in some way to strengthen that for the next generation of leaders, I’m all in. I still believe in the work that they’re doing to help with good research, best practices, educational content and networking events to help us all be the best at strengthening our respective memberships or industries.
UP CLOSE WITH HEIDI BROCK
Pivotal career moment: “I had a fabulous mentor at Weyerhaeuser, and he said, ‘We’d be happy to work with you on a graduate degree, but you need to choose between an MBA and a law degree. It’s not going to be both,’” Brock said. “What was calling me was the strategy and the business dimensions. That led me to the MBA program. Then it was a bittersweet conversation with my father when I told him I was not going to become a lawyer and hang a shingle with him.” Brock earned the degree from Georgetown’s International Executive MBA program.
Free time: A son in high school keeps Brock and her husband busy, but she also enjoys reading, cooking and traveling. “Last fall I had a chance to take a milestone anniversary trip with my husband to London where we saw the Abba Voyage concert. I’m a fan, and they’ve put together a concert experience (using avatars). That was a lot of fun. Looking for those kinds of fun opportunities is something I’ve enjoyed.”
Scouting success: A former Girl Scout, Brock received the John H. Graham IV Association Executive Award from the Boy Scouts of America National Capital Area Council. The family of the late John Graham, longtime ASAE CEO and former Eagle Scout, presented the award to her. “To receive it from John’s family was especially touching,” Brock said. “John was one of the first leaders that Steve Larkin introduced me to when I was stepping into the role with the Aluminum Association. Steve said, ‘This is somebody you need to get to know and support. And he’ll be a great support to you in your role.’”
Before joining the association community, Jay Younger, an avid chef, once considered culinary school. But his first job, behind the front desk of a hotel, grew into a senior sales position and he stuck with it for five years. He became acquainted with associations as they held meetings at the hotel.
Then, as one of the two partners running the consulting firm McKinley Advisors, Younger helped switch the firm’s core business from affinity marketing to association consulting.
While Younger — the CEO Update and Association TRENDS Partner of the Year — runs a for-profit firm, he is drawn to associations’ mission-driven nature. “Getting that has been just a great fit for me professionally,” he told CEO Update in a Zoom interview from his home office.
As president and CEO of McKinley Advisors, which focuses on strategic and governance consulting and research for the association market, Younger has had a profound impact on the sector.
“Jay Younger has served the association community with distinction during his 25-year tenure with McKinley,” wrote Mark Dorsey, CEO of the Construction Specifications Institute (and CEO Update Roundtable member) in nominating Younger for the award. Dorsey has sought McKinley’s guidance at both associations he has run.
“McKinley is well known for delivering exceptional outcomes for over 500 association clients and has been at the forefront of giving back to the association community through unique contributions to our industry’s body of knowledge,” Dorsey wrote.
“We operate at the intersection of the board and the CEO,” Younger said. “We are enablers of insight. What does the market need, what do our members want? What does our staff think is the right way to go? Strategy is about making choices. It’s about choosing A over B, something associations are often challenged with. With a broad set of stakeholders, it’s difficult for any association to say no.”
Broad capabilities
Younger said the depth and breadth of McKinley’s offerings — it even has business in Europe — set it apart from the many other consulting firms serving associations.
“Most of our success stories are about scaling up with our clients to handle the work that they need done,” Younger said. “One- or two-person shops do great work, but we have capabilities across all kinds of different things that associations need. We work in continued partnership with our clients to take ideas and turn them into reality.”
But he said the firm’s true “secret sauce” is its culture — including a passion for the work associations do. That’s why clients don’t dread when McKinley’s consultants arrive on site, Younger said.
Some things don’t change
Asked what changes he has seen in his two decades consulting for associations, Younger said many things have actually stayed the same. He has seen several technological threats to association business models come along, but associations persist.
“Some of the best strategic choices that we see as long-term wins that organizations make are based on things that don’t change all that much,” he said. “As an example, people still want to meet, people still want to be together, people want to associate.”
Having said that, some things have changed, so associations need to keep up. They don’t have the luxury of, as Younger puts it, “infinite noodling.”
“Speed to market is what is most different now than when I started,” Younger said.
“It used to be that you had a lot of time, comparatively, to think about things, to discuss and debate ideas. You might send it to a committee, and they might take six months, nine months, a year to study it and the board would say, ‘Nah, that’s not quite it,’” he said.
“You can’t operate that way anymore, not if you want to have opportunities to create value. You have to be willing to take some risks, and get some actual feedback from the marketplace, about what’s working.”
Optimizing board performance
To accomplish that, volunteer leadership needs to function at a high level, he said.
“The board has to prioritize where it’s spending its time,” Younger said. “You have to be focused on the right conversations and the right decisions. Shedding all the operational minutiae that boards can get into is paramount right now.”
But Younger takes issue with the conventional wisdom that boards set strategic direction and CEOs just execute, calling it an “oversimplification.”
“If we look at what happens (at) most successful corporations and other nonprofit organizations, the CEO and the staff team are essential,” he said. “They’re the ones that are living every day. A typical board meets for only a handful of days.
“The insights about what’s next for the organization, the insights about how to deliver value for the members, those are going to be much more informed if they come from the people who are living it every day. (We have to) reposition the role of the CEO and the senior team as enablers of strategy and value as opposed to order takers,” Younger said.
UP CLOSE WITH JAY YOUNGER
First job: After graduating from Duke University with a degree in English, Younger started out behind the reception desk at the Grand Hyatt in downtown Washington, D.C. “It created a very long-term foundation around service, which, if you’re going to be in a service business, is a really great place to start,” he said.
Pivotal career moment: Two decades ago, Younger and McKinley Advisors founder Jodie Slaughter made a strategic decision to switch from affinity marketing for for-profit companies to focus on consulting in the association sector. “I don’t think we would have predicted that it would take off the way that it has,” Younger said. “We have 45 employees now and operate globally.”
Power hours: Younger is the proud owner of a 37-foot Monterey cruiser, a power boat, which he keeps in Annapolis, Md. He, his wife Jennifer, and their three children enjoy the water. “This stems from growing up in Florida: I really love boating,” he said. “Being on the water is a big part of my life. We spend a good deal of time on the boat together as a family.”
Words of wisdom: Make sure you and your employees get to “unplug” and avoid answering emails when not working. “Our work is very taxing,” Younger said. “To be sustainable, you have to recover. We operate in a series of sprints. If you’ve been going nonstop for six weeks or eight weeks, it’s time to throttle back. That’s been something we’ve tried to do in our culture, to not just give people permission but to set an expectation that that’s what you have to do to take care of yourself.”
Dan Berger would like a sabbatical, time to go fly fishing and to spend some time with his wife and college-age daughter in their new home in South Florida. But he’s had no shortage of people contacting him with new opportunities since wrapping up a 10-year tenure as CEO of the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions (NAFCU) following the group’s merger with its sometime rival, the Credit Union National Association (CUNA), at year-end.
CUNA CEO Jim Nussle will lead the new organization formed by the merger, America’s Credit Unions.
“I was putting in 60, 70, 80-hour weeks and traveling 100,000 miles a year. So, a little break would be nice,” he told CEO Update in a video interview a few weeks before his departure.
All that effort enabled Berger to build the culture he wanted and helped NAFCU enter the merger in strong financial shape, having weathered the pandemic well, he said.
“If you have a really solid culture, it’s resilient,” he said. “So, you can go through a financial crisis and go through a pandemic. And if you have a good culture, you come out with flying colors, and I think our culture withstood the pandemic better than most” associations.
Elements of a strong culture include communication — even over-communication — and hiring well.
“We had a no-asshole rule,” he said. “It’s extremely important because you’re going to spend more time with folks at work than you do with your own family, typically. So, you want to be able to get along and respect one another. The front end is really, really important,” he said.
“We hired slow and fired fast. You want to prevent that second part. It’s always on the front end, finding those people that have the same values as we do from a culture standpoint.”
To identify good potential team members, Berger and NAFCU staff from multiple departments asked targeted questions in a series of interviews, such as how candidates would handle certain challenging situations or have handled such situations in the past.
“It’s not a 100% success rate, but you can narrow it down, you kind of know who those people are,” he said.
The art of communication
The importance of communication was emphasized by an executive coach, John Spence, whom Berger worked with early in his CEO tenure. (Berger had been at NAFCU for eight years, leading advocacy, before being elevated to CEO.)
“You have to have the ability to communicate your vision and your strategy,” Berger said. “And you have to repeat it often. The three things that (John) really helped me work on were communication, communication and some more communication.
“You may say it two or three times, but people are busy, busy with their jobs and their families. They may or may not have heard it the first few times. There has to be ongoing messaging. Communication is number one. But number two is to focus on the culture of the organization.”
Building trust also is critical, with both the staff and the board, and one way Berger did so was being transparent about the association’s finances.
“We showed our financials to our staff on a monthly basis, and we did the same thing with our board,” he said. “To have a strong relationship with your board is extremely important. And that comes down to trust and having them be able to trust the financials, and trust that, ‘Hey, we tried something, and it didn’t work, this is what we’re going to do next.’
“No one hits grand slams every time. There are some strikeouts. Just being forthcoming on that and having that relationship with the board is crucial,” he said.
‘Extreme member service’
Another aspect of NAFCU’s culture under Berger was an intense focus on member service.
“You have to have really a good member service-oriented staff, and that type of culture,” he said. “It takes work. You have to find those people who are passionate about the industry and are passionate about member service. Internally, we call it extreme member service.”
Board members appreciated that attention to their needs. “We have the utmost respect for both associations and their employees and look forward to working together as we integrate the two organizations to best support the credit union industry,” former NAFCU Chair Gary Grinnell said in an August 2023 statement in which the associations announced their intent to merge.
“We appreciate Dan’s relentless focus on growing NAFCU and serving its members with aggressive advocacy and ‘extreme member service,’” Grinnell said.
The decision to create a single credit union trade association was prompted by a decline in the number of credit unions, said Berger, who had worked at NAFCU for 18 years.
“When I started at NAFCU, there were 16,000 credit unions,” Berger said. “There are 4,600 now. We’ve just consolidated because we’re looking for economies of scale. Everything’s more expensive. It’s just not a sustainable business model in a shrinking marketplace to have two national trade associations doing very similar things.”
Berger, who has been a credit union member since he was 9 years old, said the two associations merged at an optimal time, when both groups are financially strong. “It’s better to do the merger while you’re both strong, so you get the best of the best and move on and create America’s Credit Unions.”
It’s often true that opportunity knocks in surprising ways. Pamela Arora, president and CEO of the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI), a standards development organization, has had this very experience. Approached to lead when she least expected it, Arora accepted the role in March 2022, aiming to serve AAMI’s community on a global scale.
Drawing from her history of C-suite roles and service on AAMI’s board, Arora drives the organization forward through her passion for its mission and her technology expertise.
“Being CEO gives you a wonderful opportunity for the kinds of impacts you can make,” Arora said. In her case, the role has afforded her the opportunity to facilitate digital transformation to better serve her industry.
Leading with experience
Arora’s business acumen has always been apparent. She recalled writing a business plan in her MBA program at Southern Methodist University for a travel company that is still in business. Arora has held C-suite positions for organizations such as Perot Systems, LiquidAgents Healthcare, Children’s Health, and UMass Memorial Health. It is at AAMI, however, where she has found her niche.
“The intersection of health care and technology (is) the opportunity I find most gratifying,” Arora said.
Arora creates new spaces for technology adoption at AAMI. She proudly accelerates the organization’s mission — the development, management and use of safe and effective health technology — because that’s where her passion is.
Arora served on AAMI’s board for six years. She knew the CEO position was open but wasn’t sure she wanted to make a change. When approached by the chairman of the board to apply, Arora considered her priorities, ultimately concluding she could “make a global impact around health care, with the standards as well as the training.”
She’d been serving a local community in her previous role and recalls thinking, “Here’s an opportunity to not only do more in the U.S., but also to do more globally, as far as safe, effective application of technology to help save lives or make lives better. And she decided to proceed.
Elevating care with compliance
AAMI creates standards for the medical device industry. The nonprofit also offers information, support and guidance for health care technology and sterilization professionals. These standards help health care organizations best serve their patients.
It’s a collaborative community dedicated to care. “Whether you work in a care delivery location, like a hospital or clinic, or whether you’re part of the health care ecosystem, we all have a path to the patient,” Arora said. In an industry fraught with uncertainty, AAMI offers protocols for productive and safe care.
According to a report from technology vendor SAI360, the health care industry is facing such compliance issues as rising patient data security breaches, underskilled staff and more regulatory scrutiny. Arora’s approach to tackling such issues focuses on using technology as a primary tool to increase layers of cyber protection, train staff and communicate with precision.
Spearheading AAMI’s technology reinvention
Arora’s specializations —technology and health care — position her to lead the organization’s digital transformation. The health care industry in continuously adopting digital tools for as many tasks as possible. “When you think of the revolution of what’s happening in health care with technology, it requires new standards, and exciting areas like AI are rethinking methods of training,” said Arora.
Arora has also reinvented her organization’s media relations tactics. “We’ve been looking at alternative methods of outreach for news. All this requires new processes and approaches,” she said. Since Arora became CEO, AAMI has opened a new studio. “We primarily use it to film and produce AAMI News in Conversation interviews that accompany our original news stories on developments related to the medical device industry and medical device standards,” she said.
Studio activities also include “producing promotional materials related to AAMI events, education and individual podcast episodes with AAMI staff and volunteers who help (facilitate) or adopt our industry guidance.”
“We have amazing communicators. And that’s where our studio really helps to get the word out (globally) as far as why you should be excited and adopt” AAMI standards, Arora said.
Arora said her team has had great success with capturing interviews and meetings from various locations on iPhone videos. This has increased engagement with communications resources. “We’ve had an uptick in consumption of our articles by 30% just by having a video link, whether they open the video link or not,” she said.
Maximizing collaboration
Arora facilitates collaboration that helps team members grow their skills. “We have the pleasure and the honor to gather multidisciplinary folks of experts that just know that area so well and can share it and are creating standards. So, everyone can advance much more quickly,” she said.
Arora emphasizes that collaboration isn’t limited to internal teams; partnerships with vendors, government agencies and other nonprofits are important as well. Among a multitude of strong relationships, Arora said she is particularly pleased with AAMI’s collaborations with the Food and Drug Administration and the American National Standards Institute.
Pro tips
Arora has plenty of guidance for individuals seeking to hold a C-suite position. First, she said to “make sure you’re very interested in the mission. And then the other stuff falls into place. You need to be excited about what those impacts are. And if you do so, you’ll end up finding that you’re able to move further towards these different opportunities.”
She also emphasizes the importance of hearing what industry members and stakeholders need: “Listen first, then work your plans with your team. But also, don’t underestimate the ability to do more through your external partnerships and how you work those.”
Reflecting on the success she had with her first business, Arora stressed the importance of education: “Don’t underestimate what you might be able to learn from some of the programs that are out there as far as college education.”
When a young Todd Hauptli decided to major in government and political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, his parents were, he says, “dismayed.”
“My dad in particular had hoped that I would pursue a business degree or something like that, where I’d be guaranteed some kind of employment,” Hauptli told CEO Update in a Zoom interview from his office at the American Association of Airport Executives (AAAE) in Alexandria, Va.
As it turns out, Hauptli has worked for AAAE for 32 years and has been its CEO since 2013.
Two days after college graduation, the California native bought a one-way ticket to Washington, D.C., “with no job and no place to stay after my first night.”
He started as a Capitol Hill aide, working for the House Republican Research Committee, then became associate director of Cabinet affairs late in the Reagan administration. Hauptli landed at AAAE as a lobbyist in 1991.
All those years representing executives who manage airports paid off during the pandemic as AAAE helped secure federal aid for the sector when flights fell more than 90%. Hauptli and his staff had to advocate for such aid while holding the association together as its finances experienced a hard landing.
It took layoffs and deep pay cuts for staff — including Hauptli — to enable the association to continue its critical advocacy mission on behalf of a devastated industry.
Even more amazing than the fact that Hauptli has worked at AAAE since 1991 is that he is just the third chief executive in the association’s 95-year history. (It lacked a chief executive for its first 30 years.) And Hauptli plans to remain another five years to see the association through its centennial celebration.
Excerpts from the interview, edited for length and clarity, follow:
CEO Update: How did 2023 go for AAAE?
Todd Hauptli: It was a really good year for us. We had record revenue. We’re above our pre-pandemic highs with net income. We’ve also pushed out a record number of scholarships this year from our foundation.
CU: You celebrated your 10th anniversary as CEO on Dec. 1. How do you feel looking back on your tenure?
TH: It feels great. When I was going through the selection process to get the job, at a time when I was AAAE’s chief lobbyist, I wrote a book detailing my vision of the future for the organization. And one of the wild-ass, audacious things I said was, “Pick me and we’re going to become a $100 million organization by 2028.” We were then a $33 million group. But we were able to reach that $100 million a year in five years rather than 15 years. If you get great people aligned around a shared vision, you can achieve amazing results.
CU: You wrote a book during the CEO interviewing process?
TH: (Holds up his self-published hardcover book, “AAAE: The Road Ahead.”) It’s not a long book, 40 pages or so. But it was my vision for the organization and what I thought my qualifications were. I felt we were at a crossroads in terms of our need to innovate. It wasn’t supposed to be a New York Times bestseller, it was only intended to influence the seven people on the selection committee. Even though I had worked at AAAE for 23 years, I didn’t want to take anything for granted. I wanted to demonstrate a seriousness of purpose, and I wanted people to see that I had a plan and a vision for the future of the organization.
CU: How have you imbued the organization with an entrepreneurial spirit?
TH: AAAE has a somewhat unique business model in the association world in that dues represent less than 2% of our revenue. We have 15 different lines of business. We run lots of meetings and conferences. We have different business solutions for problems in the airport space. The entrepreneurial spirit in the organization was alive and well long before I became CEO. But we’ve been able over the past 10 years to focus on solutions that deliver great impact for the members.
CU: Tell us about some of those business solutions.
TH: Years ago, we created a revenue-management system for ride-share companies that operate at airports. Back when Uber and Lyft were in their infancy, they would have drivers just show up at airports and get in fights with cab drivers. We developed a revenue tracking system, so we now know when an Uber or Lyft comes on airport property, picks somebody up, drops somebody off and leaves airport property. It’s a great service to our members and a major source of association revenue.
CU: How do you approach advocacy?
TH: One of the strengths that airports have is that airports exist in virtually every community. Often, airports are a big economic driver. We’ve tried to take advantage of that strength that we have with grassroots efforts. We don’t have access to all the money some trade associations do, but what we do have is a lot of impact in local communities.
CU: How has technology changed what you do?
TH: You think about the instantaneous nature of information dissemination. When we were going through the pandemic, our advocacy team had daily calls with airports to give them an update on what was going on with COVID relief efforts, infrastructure funding and all those kinds of issues. We had up to 500 people a day on these calls, and we got COVID relief early on. But we still today have weekly calls with up to 200 airport directors and airport people, so the pandemic showed our members how critical our advocacy efforts are, and their engagement level has remained extremely high.
CU: You had to lay off staff during the pandemic. Have you been able to hire back?
TH: Dues being such a small portion of our revenues, less than 2%, we rely very heavily on aviation activity to fund the organization. In a matter of five or six weeks, aviation dropped 94%. We knew very quickly that it was going to be very tough on AAAE. So, we moved aggressively early on. We had to lay off 25% of the staff and the remaining staff took pay cuts anywhere between 20% and 40%. We’ve been gradually able to add folks back. We’re still not where we were in 2019. But we went from 72 people down to 50-something and now we’re at 65.
CU: And you took a pay cut as well.
TH: Yes. I was the one who took a 40% cut. But you want a team that acts and feels like owners. And the thing I’m incredibly proud of is the way the team came through the pandemic and worked together, including people who took those significant pay cuts, because they understood how important that mission was, and that this was what we were going to have to do to get to the other side. (Lost pay for Hauptli and his staff has since been restored and compensation has increased.)
CU: Is AAAE’s work schedule still hybrid?
TH: Our staff is in the office three days a week, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, with the option to work remotely on Wednesdays and Fridays. I’d say about 80% of the people take that option.
CU: Do you hope to increase that to four or five days in the office at some point?
TH: We started 2024 in the same pattern that we’ve had, but I don’t know that we will end this year with the same pattern. Personally, I would prefer to have people in the office more. But I understand the flexibility arguments and it’s hard to argue that staff are not getting the job done.
CU: What are the most essential leadership traits for an association executive?
TH: I have sort of an “Oh, s---” file in case something happens to me: 10 key skills or attributes to look for and develop and measure in future CEO selection. Of those, strategic vision ends up being critical. And financial acumen is really important. And communications ability and being able to be a charismatic leader.
CU: Is strategic vision a skill that can be developed?
TH: I think so. I wasn’t born with that capability. As you spend time in a career and an organization, you get to know the ins and outs of it. I think you can develop that. It can be nurtured.
CU: What has been the biggest challenge you’ve overcome as CEO?
TH: By a long shot, the pandemic was the biggest challenge. It was an existential threat to the organization. I was very intentional about being transparent and candid with the team. All we can do is the best we can do. I’m proud of not only getting through the pandemic but the way the team responded, and getting through the pandemic in a way that allowed us to have great impact for the membership.
CU: You mentioned scholarships as a major accomplishment last year. How much money is involved and who are the scholarships for?
TH: It’s a big focus for us. Our AAAE Foundation gave out 138 scholarships last year, totaling $482,000. A big chunk of it is for people on the uphill part of their career trajectory who are pursuing MBAs, who are interested in careers in aviation management. We’re trying to help build the pipeline for future leaders, any industry. We have scholarships for women in aviation. We have scholarships that I created for innovation and entrepreneurship, and we’ve got a couple of diversity, equity and inclusion scholarships. When I took over 10 years ago, the foundation had about $2 million in it and we gave out about $174,000 a year in scholarships. Today we have $8 million and we give out about half a million dollars a year.
CU: Where do you see yourself in five years?
TH: The hundredth anniversary of AAAE is in 2028. It was founded in 1928. For the first couple of decades of its existence, there was no permanent professional staff in place. Starting in 1958, they hired their first staff leader, and he led from 1958 to 1983. The second staff leader was with the organization until 2013, when they hired me. I am the third. If everything goes according to plan, in five years, as we celebrate our hundredth anniversary, I will be in my final year as the staff leader of AAAE.
Did you know?
Political bug: As a political science major, Hauptli was inspired by one of his visiting professors, a former U.S. Senate chief of staff: “He told these wonderful stories about how Washington really worked, as opposed to what the textbooks said.”
Now you’re cooking: Hauptli is a good enough chef that he invites professional chefs to his house for dinner. He is also the author of a cookbook called “Chez Hauptli.”
Losing it: Like many people, Hauptli purchased a Peloton exercise bike during the pandemic, and he said it became an “obsession.” His weight is down from 240 to 175. “I’m proud to say I’m 75% of the man I was,” he quipped.
National Association of Home Builders CEO will focus on business, membership growth.