Acronym

The dynamic Tangie Newborn, CEO of the Alliance for Nonprofit Management, led the song dance of “Wanna Be CEOs”. Literally, she had her session attendees singing and dancing, well, kind of… as well as a hodge podge of association senior staffers will do in the last session of the afternoon.

As she answered questions and led participants through the maze of how to get themselves CEO-ready, here were a few of the more memorable/useful moments:

How do you get these experiences if you can’t get them in the job you have now?

“Volunteer.” (Don’t worry, those who know Tangie know there’s not many one-word answers, so take it while you can get it.)

But something like media training—how do you get that experience?

“Take training and education on it. Do research. Look for models.

“Your company is sending you here, but they don’t have to know each and every session you go to. Get in a session on media and communications. If you’re a marketing manager, don’t go to the marketing sessions. You know how to do your job. Go to the CEO sessions or the finance sessions. If you’re weak in an area, go to those sessions. Your CEO doesn’t have to know.”

Other advice and sayings:

“Go to board meetings. As much as you can be a staff liaison to a board committee go with it. Run with it. Interact with the board as much as you can. And you need to go in there with a different mindset. Go in and see the hard time they’re giving the CEO or the chair. See how the board challenges the CEO. Have some fun.”

“Sometimes I still go to sleep” – said to someone who said that she gets sleepy at board meetings when the directors talk about investment strategies.

“Can all that you can can – that’s what my grandmother always said. Find out what you don’t know, and go learn it.”

“I don’t know a thing about lobbying, but I know how to hire a lobbyist.”

“When I go in front of that selection committee, I’m selling Tangie. I’m going out with a Tangie case -- you know one of those oldtime traveling salesman suitcases -- and I’m selling that case. And I’m doing it with authority.”