Leadership - Management

Steve Anderson Continues to Exhibit Great Leadership

By Peter Langlois

National Restaurant Association President-CEO Steve Anderson is doing a terrific job of showing the way to just not restaurateurs but hospitality companies and personnel in all areas, such as Travel and Tourism, Lodging, Casinos, and so on. Openly inclusive, Anderson has shown a pro-active approach to a wide variety of issues that clearly put the National Restaurant Association front and center, and even leading edge, both in Washington DC and nationally.

For example, on the obesity and nutrition challenge, Anderson and his staff have developed not just a newsletter to keep members abreast of trends and solutions to the challenges being brought forth by special interest groups like P.E.T.A. and the Atlanta-based Center for Science in the Public Interest, but launched “Ask Us” during the Restaurant Show in Chicago in late May. “Ask Us” is emerging as a conduit for discussing and understanding nutrition and the important role it plays in the evolving lifestyles of our guests. Anderson is sending a clear message: Get on board. Our guests’ expectations have risen and we need to meet the challenge. While diets like Atkins’ and South Beach may in fact be fads just like the Grapefruit and Water Diets before them, I agree with Anderson that social consciousness has been raised, and we need to get our heads out of the sand.

Anderson and the NRA political mavens have also gone after such issues as the so-called “death taxes,” medical insurance programs for small businesses (ma and pa’s), individuals’ rights to choose, and more. No question his greatest initiative has been “Cornerstone,” which he has used to propel the foodservice business to a prominent position in President Bush’s agenda. SBA Loans to restaurateurs have consistently increased each year under Anderson’s leadership.

One thing I didn’t know until recently about Steve is his predisposition towards technology. He caught me totally by surprise when the NRA launched its own Blog to keep both attendees and those not at The Restaurant Show up-to-speed on Show Events, including the latest trends. The Blog had 10,000 Page-Views the week of The Show. Not bad for a Start Up!

It’s little wonder that membership stands at record levels.

Bio:

Steven C. Anderson, CAE 
President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Restaurant Association

Steve Anderson is President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Restaurant Association, a position he assumed in 1999. He represents and is the chief spokesman for the nation’s restaurant industry, which is comprised of 878,000 locations, 12 million employees and $440 billion in annual sales.

In 2004, Anderson was named the “Association Executive of the Year” by Association Trends newspaper, joining only 25 men and women honored with that title since 1980. Nation’s Restaurant News cited Anderson as one of the “50 Power Players” in the restaurant industry. On two occasions Washingtonian magazine has named Anderson as one of the “50 Best” trade association executives. Fortune Small Business magazine selected Anderson as one of its “Power 30” in America representing small business. The American Society of Association Executives has cited Anderson as an “Advocate with Impact,” and the Greater Washington Society of Association Executives has called him a “Rainmaker.”

Anderson has appeared on the NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, The Today Show, C-SPAN, numerous CNN and FOX News television shows, and other major television and radio outlets. Anderson has been cited in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters and numerous other major domestic and international print publications.

Before joining the National Restaurant Association, Anderson held management positions at the American Frozen Food Institute for 20 years, having served as President and Chief Executive Officer for 10 years. He was a candidate for the United States Congress from the Sixteenth District of Illinois in 1980. Anderson served as a senior staff member to Congressman John B. Anderson (no relation), the Chairman of the Republican Conference of the United States House of Representatives, the third-ranking position in the Republican leadership.

Anderson has been a Visiting Lecturer at Northwestern University’s J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management and American University’s Washington College of Law. He was a Paul E. Wise Executive in Residence at the University of Delaware.

Anderson currently serves on the Board of Directors at the United States Chamber of Commerce. He is the Past Chairman of the National Board of Trustees of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Organization Management, and a member of the U.S. Chamber’s Association Committee of 100.

He served as a member of the American Society of Association Executives Board of Directors, and Chairman of its Public Policy Committee and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of its Insurance Commission. He is a member of the organization’s Key Industry Associations Committee.

Anderson serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal for Association Leadership.

He holds the IOM designation from the Institute for Organization Management and the CAE designation conferred by the American Society of Association Executives.

Anderson is a graduate of Cornell College, where during his junior year he was selected to study at Oxford University and in London. During that time, he clerked for The Honorable William Hamling, a member of the British House of Commons. He attended the Legislative Affairs Program for graduate study at The George Washington University. He completed the six-year Institute for Organization Management Program at the University of Delaware.

He is married and has two sons.