You were also with McDonald’s?

That, too, was a great experience. I was vice president of global public policy and government relations, so some of the most interesting work, for me, was on the international scene. My emphasis until then was state and local government, along with some U.S. federal work, so this was a very different — and wonderfully educational — challenge. I learned a lot sitting in meetings with government affairs professionals from Portugal, France, Korea, Australia and other countries. There are literally thousands of jurisdictions of government in the U.S. alone, so you can imagine what it is like when you are helping public affairs professionals who are dealing with the challenges of government in other countries. And part of what you might call McDonald’s genius is its ability to maintain one of the most recognized brands in the world — up there with Nike and Apple — but also be local. You can see that even in the menus and how they differ depending on the country in which the restaurant is located. There is consistency in most items, but there are local offerings too.

The trajectory of your career is impressive. You began, pretty much right out of college, as a speechwriter. But you were given more and more responsibility at the American Beverage Association, McDonald’s and now at the Consumer Brands Association. Any secrets of your success?

I’m a Michigan native, and when I was right out of college and working for a public relations firm in Michigan, I was fortunate to work for a boss who didn’t have a choice (thanks to an exodus of employees following a change in firm ownership) but to give a young gal a lot of responsibilities. Right away, I was tasked with developing a communications plan for a Superfund reclamation project, and I had to figure out how to explain to people about the toxic pollution in their groundwater without terrifying them, but also reassure them that progress was being made. That’s not easy. Then, the then-attorney general of Michigan tapped me to be her writer, then her communications director, then her deputy chief in the governor’s office. She gave me opportunities and confidence: a priceless combo.

Talk about the challenges of leadership in the corporate vs. association worlds, and how they differ.

In the corporate world, there are measures of success that can be quantified — stock prices, profits, quarterly numbers to make, for example. And you have to be able to explain how the public affairs work you do helps meet those goals and how your work fits into the overall business of the company. In a sense, there is really one chain of command. In the association world, instead of one chain of command, it’s like you have 65 bosses, meaning the members. And you have to be able to engage in advocacy and campaign management on their behalf. Instead of educating the corporate structure, you focus on the alignment of the members.

If you weren’t in public affairs, what might you be doing?

I have a kind of fantasy of running a small farm, although I know nothing about farming. I don’t even garden. I guess I picture a cute little farmhouse, with some goats, a pig maybe — cute animals. And it would be somewhere picturesque, like the Shenandoah Valley.

Not in Michigan?

I guess not. When I first came to the Washington area, it was to run Gov. Granholm’s Washington office. Everybody today can work remotely, but that was unusual then, when my boss was mostly back in Michigan hundreds of miles away. My husband, who runs a small tech services company, is a Michigander, too, and we figured we would be here for at most 18 months, when the governor’s term ended. Then we would return to Michigan. But we’re still here, in Northern Virginia. We’re Michiganders, so it is strange to realize our two children are Virginians.

Reach Genna at [email protected].