The Club Manager. We think we know the role as members, as boards and governors. Growing up in Stowe, Vermont Elle Anderson thought she knew all about the club up there too, especially as she returned to her home town after a career as an elite athlete.

Elle Anderson returned home in 2020 and start a family. Well, she not only started a family. She also started the ball rolling at Stowe Tennis Club, one of the best-known tennis clubs in New England, as she now heads into her third season as the club’s General Manager.

“You can click on our website and pay dues in about 30 seconds,” says Anderson, and most members don’t realize how much time structuring and offering dues payments takes behind the scenes. “Software is great but you have to invest manpower” to make member services and hospitality to keep up with the new demands from members.

Anderson feels that most clubs, established as non-profits, just dont pay enough attention to operating as an actual business.

She’s seeing her role, entering her third summer at a seasonal club, evolving into a keynote speaker as well as a listener. “I want to understand the new members and what they want,” she says. We, as club managers, need to create that time to see what other clubs are doing and how other memberships are evolving, outside our own clubs.

“I look at my members sort of as constituents,” states the youthful Anderson. As a leader, Elle wants to offer space for discussion and understand various viewpoints while remaining patient, but then demonstrating and educating the board as to show how we can make the club better.

At the bottom of Stowe’s ski slopes, join the BeyondTheBaselines.com podcast and one of the most thoughtful and insightful leaders, Elle Anderson, as she snow plows into the role of Club Manager at one of the most elite tennis clubs in America.