This story originally appeared in the most recent issue of our magazine; subsequently the subject, Liz Glover Wilson, left her job at iStar Financial to start her own event and fund-raising company for nonprofits, Elizabeth Rose Consulting. Before she left, Glover Wilson expanded her two staffers' job descriptions, and they were promoted and remain at the company. One of her first clients is the iStar Charity Foundation, and she'll be hosting its annual charity shootout in July. Here's our original story.
Liz Glover Wilson has spent nearly 13 years at iStar Financial, steadily increasing her presence at the company by centralizing its approach to meetings and events and rising to vice president of corporate events. Now that funds are being taken from her department, she approaches every project with an argument for its necessity, and so far, she’s making her point.
How She’s Already Proven Her Worth
When Glover Wilson joined the real estate investment firm in 1996, planning its events was a one-woman job. She spent her first few years running 35 big events a year on a shoestring budget and eventually implemented a standard by which all iStar events are produced. Glover Wilson now has oversight of all meetings and event initiatives nationwide, so whether someone in her department or an administrative assistant plans them, they should deliver a consistent brand message and use her proven cost-saving methods.
“I’ve always talked to my staff a lot about being a part of the whole iStar team,” Glover Wilson says. “We’ve built the department in such a way that the company doesn’t see us just as event planners, but as a flexible extension of their team that’s able to do other marketing projects and other strategic efforts in the firm.”
What She Has to Show for It
After a few years on the job, Glover Wilson called a meeting with top executives to discuss growth of her position. “I had a packet detailing how much money I spent on each event,” she says. “We went over the variety of projects I’d worked on, from the $3,000 events to the $200,000 ones.”
That meeting lead to the addition of a staffer and significantly increased her salary. When she felt it was time to grow her department again, as the company itself was growing, she scheduled another meeting to show how much money went to consultants and how much less would be spent hiring a midlevel assistant. During these conversations, Glover Wilson focused on what she could do with more, not the things she wasn’t able to do already. She hired another assistant and earned the title of vice president.
Where Things Are Headed
As one of the firm’s few employees not directly involved in finance, Glover Wilson says, “I’ve always had to take a strong position that events offered a return on investment. Going forward, I have this new term, and that’s ‘return on perception.’ What we’re facing now—especially as a public company and financial firm—is the unfortunate portrayal by the media that events are bad.”
Earlier this year, Glover Wilson was planning an event tied to a major financial conference, which a small iStar delegation planned to attend. She was pulling it off on 75 percent of the budget she’d expected, until the day before the conference, when a handful of executives panicked and decided to pull out. Instead of accepting the decision, she approached the concerned parties and asked them to explain their reservations. “Once I identified their worries,” she says, “we worked to find a middle ground.”
The event went on—with a few alterations to the menu and bare-bones decor—but Glover Wilson thinks of it as a success. The company didn’t receive any negative attention, and she’s working to make sure everyone knows how to handle it if they ever do. She talks to executives before every event about how to argue against possible accusations of wastefulness, and they, in turn, have schooled company representatives attending these events.
