Run to Win by Stephanie Schriock & Christina Reynolds

Author:Stephanie Schriock & Christina Reynolds [Schriock, Stephanie & Reynolds, Christina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2021-01-12T00:00:00+00:00

FIND YOUR PARTNER

Now that you have your team, either one you’ve built from the ground up or one you’ve inherited, the next thing you’ll need is your own partner in management. This is especially true in a campaign. The roles of candidate and campaign manager are different but both vital. As the president of EMILY’s List, I am the public face of the organization, and so I do much of the fundraising and I’m often on the road. I needed to find an executive director who could manage the staff when I wasn’t there and lead the team in ways that complemented my own skills. This is often a situation where opposites attract. In other words, don’t hire another you. Hire someone who brings to the table things that you don’t.

When you find that person, you need to build trust with them. The most important quality for them to have, whether they’re a close friend or a new hire, is that they are comfortable telling you no. In the ten-plus years I have been president of EMILY’s List, I have only had three executive directors, which is a great record in politics, where turnover is typically fast. The first two were recruited to be the CEO of the Democratic National Committee directly from our operation. Now I am holding on to the third one for dear life.

My first executive director was an old friend and colleague, Amy Dacey. She and I had worked together back in 2002 at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. We worked hard and we had fun on that committee, and built up a lot of trust and respect. We became very close friends, and she supported my move to the Howard Dean presidential campaign in 2003, even as she was a leader in John Kerry’s presidential campaign. We cheered each other’s careers on for years and saw each other when we could.

Eight years later, when I took this big new job, I knew I had to have her by my side. She was a woman whose work I knew and respected, and I knew she would be a partner whom I could trust to be honest with me. It took a little convincing on my part, but Amy finally said yes, and together we did some amazing early work. We made some hard changes at the beginning, including the massive downsizing to rebuild EMILY’s List. I would have never survived the first few years of EMILY’s List without Amy Dacey by my side. When President Obama called her to a meeting to recruit her to run the Democratic National Committee, I knew it was time for me to learn to survive without her. You just don’t say no to an offer like that! So after three years of reorganization and growth, off she went.

My second executive director was also someone I had known and trusted since my days on the Dean campaign. It was 2013 and still early days for me at EMILY’s List. Given the

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