She Started as the Receptionist. Now She’s the CEO.

0:00I'm Angela Val and you're listening to Sweet Success.

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0:37Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Sweet Success. I'm your host, Katie Klein, and today I'm thrilled to welcome Angela Vall to the show. Angela is the president and CEO of Visit Philadelphia, the official destination marketing organization for the city. Since stepping into the role in May 2022, Angela has led efforts to showcase Philadelphia as a vibrant, world-class destination, driving tourism, economic impact, and community pride through innovative marketing and strategic partnerships. With an impressive career spanning destination marketing, brand strategy, and hospitality leadership, Angela is now helping to shape the future of one of America's most historic and dynamic cities.

1:20Angela, thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here, Katie. So for more than three decades, you have held a variety of roles across Philadelphia's tourism and hospitality ecosystem. Different jobs that actually visit Philadelphia, which we'll talk about more shortly. Then working as the deputy executive director of the Philadelphia 2016 Democratic National Convention. Then for the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau. Later for Ready, Set, Philly. and of course now back in your current role at Visit Philly. Are you from the city originally?

1:57And what is it about Philadelphia that has kept you so invested in telling the city's story? You know, I'm not originally from Philadelphia. I'm from Maryland, right down the road. I came to Philadelphia to go to Drexel University, which has a co-op program, which allowed for me to go to school for six months and then work for six months. Never been one of those kids that really loved school. So it was perfect for me. It was just far away enough from Maryland that my parents wouldn't stop by unannounced, but felt homesick. I could get back to home very quickly. But this place, I have to admit, I at first did not love it.

2:40Wow. That was a plot twist I did not see coming. I thought you were going to say it was love at first sight and you knew it from day one. it was not i always wanted to live in a city i knew that but when i got to this city i just felt like it was really small and it did not have a convention center at the time and i was going into tours of industry it also had a very small number of hotels back then you'd whip open you know the white pages um the yellow pages and look to see you know what companies are here and uh they did not have a lot of hotels. So I did not think at that time that I would be staying in Philadelphia because of my industry.

3:20I thought I would probably move back to Washington or to a state that had a more robust hospitality industry. By the time I left college in 1994, they had built the Convention Center, which opened in 1995. And one at that point, it kind of was gangbusters. Ed Vendell, who was our mayor at the time, really focused on hospitality as a sector here. And as I started to work in this industry and got to know the city better, I did fall in love with it. I fell in love with my potential. I see it as a gem between two rivers, both the Schuylkill River and the Delaware River. And I really wanted to be part of something that you saw change over time.

4:08And I've been able to do that. And I love this place. It's my home now. And I choose every day. That's so interesting. I mean, talk about a manifestation coming to life. Like you're like, this, this is not big enough for me. And you guys are not focusing on the industry enough. And then all of a sudden, by the time you graduate, they're like, is this better? What about now? And then you have really held such an important role in shaping that. I imagine from the time you've graduated, all of these different roles, all these, these different organizations, but really all focused on building up Philadelphia.

4:42Yes. Yes. Building up its image. Really getting the folks that live and work and call this place home to believe that they live in a great place and that they should have pride in place and that people want to visit it. We also want for people to understand when they come here, we might be defined oftentimes Philadelphia by our challenges, but so many great things in this city and we because of where we're located we also have a lot of return visitors that come it's very easy and accessible to get here so it's really has been something that has changed over the decades the culinary scene the number of arts and culture venues that we have here it's a walkable city and those are all things that individually didn't seem special.

5:36But when you put them all together and market them as the destination, that's when you get an understanding of the culture, but also who we are as a city. It reminds me of that phrase of like a rising tide raises all ships, right? Like individually, these sectors would be like, we have nothing in common with one another, but the commonality is Philadelphia, which leads me to a very embarrassing fact I need to admit as a lifelong New Yorker, I've only ever been to Philadelphia once and I was very young and it was for a family wedding. So I'm curious with your perspective, for someone who's visiting the city for the first time, as you said, there's countless kind of paths they can go down.

6:18Well, what would you say is that perfect first 48 hours itinerary? You know, when you're ready to come down, you call me. Oh, I will. I absolutely will. we set you up um but really what i would have you do is really because you're in this travel industry too is stay at one of my favorite hotels in fishtown uh called ann and bell and ann and bell is 18th century restored women's uh asylum and it's on the historic registry i know um this couple decided to buy it and make it into a boutique hotel and it is beautiful and outfitted as if anthropology decided to go in and set up their store inside. It's really great, but I love that it's in a neighborhood.

7:05I want you to get a really good feel of who are people. And what I would have you do is first go into Northern Liberties and go shopping. One of my favorite places is Lost Found, which is a vintage shop. From there, you should start our little bakery tour. We have this bakery map. Get a sweet treat as you're walking through the city. So use this map. Every once in a while, stop for, you know, a little cupcake or a little cookie, a little chocolate, those types of things. Don't have to tell me twice. Yes. And you're walking. So there should be absolutely positively no guilt with balance. Exactly.

7:42That's it. I would also say to take a moment and go to Penn's Landing. Penn's Landing is right along our waterfront. It is a great place for you to lounge by the water, get a nice treat, go to a couple of museums that are along the waterway. If you're somebody who likes to bicycle, you can bicycle along that path. Penn's Landing right into the historic district. You do have to see some of our historic sites, especially if this is your first time. So going to Independence Hall, Betsy Ross House, all in that same area, the grave site of Benjamin Franklin, as well as the National Constitution Center.

8:23There's some great places. And then walk straight through there to Washington Square. It's a beautiful park. It's very quiet. And it is both a residential neighborhood that borders the historic area. And there is a great Tallulah's Garden there, which is a little cafe for grab and go. Great coffee and a lot of cute little treats in there as well. I would head from there probably right down into Rittenhouse Square where you could do some more shopping. That square too has great outside cafes where I would definitely stop to get a drink at A Bar or A Kitchen. It's excellent. And right then as you go through Rittenhouse Square on your second day, I would maybe probably hit the parkway where you could go to the Barnes Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

9:17I'm packed my bags. I will be there in four hours. It sounds incredible. And I love that you really just showcase what you mentioned before, which is there's so much there. It's not just you're here for food, you're here for history. you kind of spammed the gamut just in that 48 hour itinerary. You also mentioned with Ann and Bell looking like anthropology outfitted it. And I believe if I'm correct that their corporate headquarters is actually in Philadelphia. Yeah. You have a lot of amazing businesses I'd imagine too for people as employers. We do. Comcast, NBCUniversal is here. We're in Edson Med City.

9:59So University of Pennsylvania is here, Jefferson, Temple, all here, all with great health systems. They're one of our larger employers. We also have the headquarters of Independence Blue Cross here. We have also started to redevelop an area called Bellwether, which is in our Southwest District, which is a great life sciences. and Last Mile, a lot of those delivery centers along there. Our airport is also only 15 minutes outside of the city. Stadium District has all of our stadiums and arenas all in one place, easy to get to, just going on public transportation. We're about to start redeveloping that, building a new arena for the 76ers and the Flyers, but turning it into a place where people now will be able to stay in a hotel and rent an apartment.

10:55So it will be a neighborhood just in a few years. One of the areas I'm really excited about is Penn's Landing Park that I mentioned before. They're capping 95. And there will be a park that goes over all of the highways and will lead directly from the waterfront into the city with a scene. So no more dodging cars. Wow, that sounds incredible. And I know my fellow New Yorkers picked up on a few things there. 15 minutes to the airport. I mean, those of us who have sat in bumper to bumper traffic to get to JFK, I think that is literally why the company Blade, the helicopter company exists, because it's a nightmare.

11:35You sold me right there alone. Stadiums all together. That's such a fun experience. And similarly, ours are so kind of separated with a majority of them even being in New Jersey. Easy to get around. Public transportation. I mean, these are really the things that impact people's everyday life as well as visitors coming to the city. And I imagine also some visitors who come to the city, part of wanting to get them to fall in love with it is not just so that they return and tell their friends, but that they consider it as a place to move to at some point. Absolutely. You know, one of the things very similar to New York that is special about a lot of East Coast cities is that you have people who are residents living in the downtown area where a business might be.

12:20So there could be an apartment above a grocery store or a restaurant. That really helps with the vibrancy of the street, right? Really selling at the end of the day is that vibrancy. Everybody has a great shop or a nice museum and good food, you know, that type of thing. You're selling a vibe and need that density downtown to make that work. For us, we really do think that your first time here might be you saying, I'm going to live here, which is who our chief marketing officer, Neil, he's from New York. He came here on two visits and bought a house 40 days later. And living here now almost 10 years, I think.

13:05So yes, I do think that visitation is advertisements for a place that you might be calling your home one day. Yeah, there's that that joke on Instagram, which is absolutely my a hundred percent real life where you like touch down in a city and you're immediately on Zillow going like, how much do you live here? And can I move here? And this seems pretty great. When I go travel, I love to walk through a neighborhood. I'm like, Oh, exactly. And even the names of the areas that you were talking about, um, bell was a bellwether. Yes. The bellwether, fish town. I mean, as somebody who's not familiar with the city, it, it already screams vibe, quite frankly, because it's very, it's very cool names.

13:46What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about Philadelphia versus the reality when they actually visit? I do think that Philadelphia suffers from being stereotyped or judged by our challenges, right? Where we, you know, people will often say it's a very poor city or a blue collar city and, oh, it's so dangerous, you know, and you can look at numbers and it will say, hey, crime is going down. But that that stigma still stays with us. So I think when people come here, they are pleasantly surprised about how walkable it is, how kind the people are, that it is a mix of, yes, both blue collar, you know, grit, as well as people that are in these what you might call a white collar job.

14:36I think the one we all have in common is that we come as we are. This is a place of pretension. And it is not a place where we are asking you to conform to what we believe and what we want to do. This is a place that no matter what you think or believe in or want to where you can do that here. We let everyone, you know, it's our Quaker roots in essence that are free to be who you are in this place. We hold our traditions very close. A lot of times, you know, people are like, oh, you did the grease pole and, you know, whole pretzels instead of bagels and things like that. Those things are very important to us.

15:24That is the culture of the city. And it is also how we welcome people here is through and through those traditions for us. So I think people are surprised by that. The scale of the city is also very small. So it does feel walkable and not kind of, you know, anxious around how am I going to get there? You know, it is not an overwhelming place, but it is a good place. And I think a lot of people are surprised when they get here.

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16:55And it also sounds so obvious in a way of why it would be such a great hospitality center, because if that is really the city's ethos of like, be who you are, that in a way is what hospitality is all about. But I think from my side, my misconception would have been like, it's all about Philly cheesesteaks and history. And what I thought was really interesting in the itinerary you shared was we went through a lot of steps before we got to, and there is some great history here too and actually i don't think you mentioned a philly cheesesteak at all which i'm sure there are copious amounts that we could enjoy and i'm i bet they're delicious they're very delicious we are a sandwich culture if you can put it on a sandwich we want to taste it um but i don't i think it is uh something that we appreciate here but it certainly does not define us yeah long time listeners and viewers of the show will know that one of the things i'm most obsessed with with the hospitality industry is how you can really start at quote unquote the bottom in the kind of entry-level roles and end up in the c-suite one day and when i was looking up your background i saw that your very first role at visit philadelphia was the receptionist now you're the ceo i don't think there's anything cooler than that and and talk about a motivator for all of your employees that like this could be your chair one day.

18:16Did you ever think when you were answering phones, I could be in charge of this company one day? No, that was never my ambition at any point in my life. I, you know, I was both receptionist and the executive assistant to the president because we didn't have enough budget to have two positions. It was a small staff. So my desk was outside of her door, which was right next to the front door. So I kind of did both. And that position did give me the opportunity to get a really good overview of the company. I had had a prior position at a hotel management company. But when I learned about visit, honestly, I would have done anything to work here.

18:58If they said it's like vacuuming the floor every morning, I would be vacuuming the floor every morning. So I really did talk about right place, right time, get an opportunity to join this organization. When it first started, I grew with the organization and my husband, when I got this job, I'll even back up a little bit. Meryl Levitz, who was the founder and CEO of the organization, she retired in 2018, I think. And the job became open at that time and I did not go for it. And I did not go for it because I was afraid. And I was afraid to succeed and both afraid to fail. It was very big shoes to fill.

19:40And I was number two, but I had never imagined myself as number one. I had recently also applied for another job and did not get it. So I was nervous. You were beaten down. Yeah. And I was just like, I just don't know if I could do it. And my predecessor, when Merrill stepped down, somebody else got this role. And my predecessor, Jeff Gaurasino, unexpectedly passed away shortly after COVID. I'm so sorry to hear that. And he and I had worked together for many years, about 12 years. And the job came open again. And my husband was like, you have to go for it. And I had so many people who were like, you have to go for it.

20:21I was, again, petrified. But I didn't think it would come around again. and I went for it. And when I got it, I, it was like one of those things where you like, you want something, but then when you get it, you're like, well, no, I don't really want it. Right. And that's what it felt like. So my husband was like, Angela, you've gone from, you know, picking up the calls to calling the shots. And he said, that's very rare in someone's lifetime. And you're doing it in the same place you started and it's come full circle. And I, I feel blessed that this has happened to me. And I feel like I'm the right person at the right time in this job at this moment.

21:03And I couldn't be more thrilled. Wow. First of all, thank you for sharing that story. Because I think particularly with the CEO role, it feels so ivory tower. And I don't mean that in the way of when you're working at an organization, the CEO themselves feels that way. But the idea of actually getting that job, even for somebody like myself, Sometimes I'm like, I always envisioned myself in the C-suite, but I never envisioned, like you said, I could see myself easily as number two. But like number one is for somebody else. So thank you for hearing that because I think it's really important for people to hear that no matter where you are, how long you've been working, how talented you are, we particularly as women often have that imposter syndrome.

21:48you were just as capable of doing that job before you applied and after you applied the only difference was the actual application and I also think it's so beautiful to hear about your relationship with your husband and we all need that person in our lives who sees us for who we are even when we're like no no I don't think I could do that and somebody's like yeah you could do that go for it yes yes he's been my cheerleader and it was going to change his life too you know I spend more time at work than I did in my previous job. And to have him be supportive of that, it's just everything seemed to align.

22:25Besides his push, what did it take for you maybe to shift that mindset from I'm only number two to I could be number one? You know what? I do have a really good group of friends. And I think, you know, talking to them about this. And I was still friends with a lot of people that worked here. So it would be a very different relationship for me to come in as the CEO over somebody that I have now developed a personal relationship with outside of our professional careers. Yeah. Not want for that to be a hurdle for me. Right. For it did. I did have to kind of have some conversations about coming back to a place which I never thought I would return to, quite frankly, for it.

23:15But I also had to honestly, you know, get a coach to help with things about executive presence and speaking at public engagements, which as the number two were very rare. And I'm a pretty introverted person. I don't share a lot. So it was really hard for me to see myself in that role to say, well, once you step into this position, they're going to also want to know more about you and how comfortable already sharing some of that and how do you share that. So I did have a lot to learn, but I was very open to learning how to represent myself in a sense for it. So it has been a journey. It's been four years in this position, but I've learned a great deal.

24:10I've learned a great deal. I also consider myself an extroverted introvert. I think when I learned what an extroverted and introvert really is in terms of like how you recharge your energy, I had this like aha moment at like 34 years old and was like, oh my God, I'm an introvert. I remember telling my dad once and he was like, no, you're not. No, you're not. You're an extrovert, which, you know, if you can't tell from his response, yes, he is a boomer. It is funny. It's like, I think a lot of people would get to a point of like, well, I'm not extroverted, so I couldn't be the CEO. And your perspective was, okay, I know that about myself.

24:48Therefore, let me get the tools that I need in order to try and plus up and make myself uncomfortable. Like there is something really nerdily exciting about when you feel uncomfortable and then asking yourself like, when's the last time that I actually felt uncomfortable. Right. Yes, absolutely. And it was, you know, it was even one of those things where I had to become very comfortable, I'm dyslexic, to say to our communications department that, you know, writes a lot of my speeches or speaking points, you know, those types of things, that I need the font to be larger and that I need the words to be phonetically.

25:28For me, I know they might be, you know, misspelled in a sense, but that's why I can read this. How many spaces between it, how much time I need to practice when we're using some type of monitor. And those are vulnerabilities that as the CEO, you're not always comfortable saying to someone who is reporting to you, you need this type of help and assistance. But for me to be successful in this role, they needed to know that very thing about me for it. So that was the other thing I had to really get comfortable with too. Some things that I kind of was like this, you know, my personal business that because I'm supported by so many other people and in this role, you're not necessarily doing the day-to-day work.

26:21Have somebody else doing that day-to-day work and you are doing the vision and getting, you know, getting the money and getting challenges out of the way and things like that. That is a very different way of relating to the staff than I had been used to in the past. Well, first of all, as a former publicist, I can tell you that secrets are always safe with your communications team. We should know where all the bodies are buried, and we will make sure that you speak on it appropriately. But I think actually what you're touching on is when you do share those vulnerabilities, you probably have built such a stronger rapport with your team, who respects you that much more.

26:57This is completely off topic, but I was with my sister yesterday. She's a school teacher. She was talking about her principal and just saying the frustrations that the teachers had because the principal always needs to position herself as if she knows everything. And the reality is none of us know what we're doing. We are all making it up as we go. So to see someone as talented, as poised, as successful as you to say, here are the things that I need in order to do my job better. To also know that about yourself is so rare because as someone who's worked with many people in the C-suite, I can tell you a lot of people have blind spots and our comms team sees everything, right?

27:37So for you to be able to say, this is who I am, this is what I need is refreshing in so many ways. Yeah. I think it comes mostly from the fact that I've always been that number two in the operations side of things. So I've been a CAO and a COO. For me, I'm always looking for staff that have like the superpower that we did not necessarily recognize when we brought them on board for a particular job. When you are looking for that, you also see the sides of people where they might not be as experienced or knowledgeable about a particular thing and that that's the that's holding them back so it did make me very much look at myself to say here are the things I don't I know I don't know like I could I could know more about financial things yeah for me I need a really good CFO right right already with a financial background might not need somebody as experienced as I need on my team for it.

28:45So those were the types of things that when we were hiring people and bringing, building the staff back after COVID, I was doing exactly what you were saying, which was hiring for my blind spots. And my job was to let go and do the job I hired them to do and listen to them so that they could guide me in what I think is the right direction to go. I would not be successful if I also believed I was the CMO and the CFO and the head of comps. Also, there's a reason that you have talented, tenured people in those roles because one person cannot and should not be doing it all. I think what you're also mentioning here with all of this self-awareness is you're able to have so much more empathy as well.

29:31And I think about that a lot with really challenging things I've been through in my life. When you're in it, you're kind of just in this poor me mode of like, why is this happening to me? And everybody else doesn't have this problem. And then as I've gotten to the other side of them, I kind of see them now as a little gift in a way. Of course, this is my publicist brain having to spin everything to be positive. But it helps me to then think, huh, I wonder what's going on in her life. and you know if I was driving and having the absolute worst day of my life and thinking wow no one in the cars around me know that I'm having the worst day of my life right now now I think when I'm driving I wonder if that guy's having the worst day of his life right and so all of those things like you're saying of knowing yourself so well knowing your strengths knowing your weaknesses being able to spot that in your team it also helps you to have an empathy for them as as as complex human beings that we are yep as people and i think too like when i started we were just kind of coming out of covet yeah it was one of those parts in covet where you're like are we really coming out of covet are we about to all right yeah and they had laid off a lot of staff so there were there was a even a department had no people in it and the cfo had passed away so they had no leader for nine months i had to come in with a lens of empathy because i we had gone through so much already and then here i show up and they're been managing themselves for nine months and i did not want to come in and just be like or you're about to do everything my way yeah and a lot of people do that still to this day which is kind of shocking to me i'm like aren't aren't we past this era i mean i saw a post on entrepreneur the other day about some ceos saying like we should be moving to six day work weeks and people need to be working at least 70 to 80 hours a week.

31:22And I'm kind of like, are we all like taking crazy pills? Like when did we get back there? But let's go back to what you were just talking about. You came in at such a pivotal moment for not only the industry coming out of COVID, but for the company going through such a a personal loss too. What was that vision that you wanted to bring to visit Philadelphia at a time where there was so much uncertainty? I think I really first wanted to stabilize the company and assure them that like, it's going to be okay. You could feel the fear of what's going to happen. You could feel how uncomfortable people were in the office.

32:04And the lease happened to be up during COVID and the board extended it by one year waiting for the new CEO to come in to say, what do you want to do? Honestly, it probably would have been cheaper for us to just extend the lease another five or 10 years in the office where we were. We did a fresh start. Had to leave the building. And they said that to the board, whatever has happened, it happened in this place and we won't get past it yeah we have to go so that was the first thing we did was move the location and i let the staff pick the location because honestly i'm basically never here right i'm out and about they are here in the office so i was like you know what do we want in the building here are our choices which one are we going for they picked it we went with fit.

32:55And we really, at that time, I wanted to make sure that we also had the staff that we needed to get the job done. There were a lot of people holding down two jobs because somebody had left and we never replaced them. So now they're feeling burnt out. They're feeling fearful of what this new leader is going to do. So ramping the team back up, getting the right people in the right seats and having them being part of that conversation was part of getting us back to where we needed to be. I really, in those first couple of years, just focused on them and getting place back to where it needed to be.

33:35And then we looked at 2026, the year we're in, as our guiding star, right? A place where this is going to be a celebration in America's birthplace for the 250th. We have World Cup coming. we have to market all of this we have to make sure the city looks good so i gave them something else to focus on okay let's work toward that and we're not looking back yeah and you gave them something else that was far enough out too it wasn't like if we don't see immediacy you know during this time like you said is covet over is it not over we don't know it was like it's okay because we are building for the future and subconsciously you're also saying you're gonna have a job until then.

34:16That's right. That's right. And the staff intentionally under 50. I think prior to COVID, the staff was around 60 people. And I'm keeping it around that kind of 40 to 45 because I really do prefer if we have another crisis, you know, that we ourselves cannot control. I would rather us live small, reduce our footprint in whatever that looks like, than lay half of a staff off. As with what it does mentally to the staff that remains, what it does to us to kind of, when we come out of the crisis, to look for new staff, right? Especially after they think all you have to do is have a crisis and then you've just laid people off.

35:03That's not the recommendation I want us to have as we can. I'd rather us weather the storms together and live a little bit more conservatively until we get through that storm than to say we're going to balloon this place up to about 60, 65 people and really hit it out of the park. I want to do a few things really, really well and make sure that this team stays intact. What you're talking about there is something that you mentioned earlier in the conversation when you were talking about the city, which is about building its image. and you're thinking about not only the internal image, but the external image for the company, even with what you did with moving the office.

35:42Now, as you were speaking at first, I'm like, would you want to move the office? Would you want to stay to give stability? But I love the way that you involved the team and was like, tell me where you want to go. What do we want in a building? You made it something fun. Otherwise it could have been like, oh, another cost cutting measure. We can't even afford our office anymore. But instead it was like, ooh, we all get to weigh in and pick where we want to commute to every day. And hey, this new CEO is here. She's already asking our opinion on things. That's pretty cool. Yeah. You know, I think in any job, you have to decide what things you want to focus on and what things matter to you so much that you are going to say, this is what I want.

36:26Where the office was, you know, I wasn't going to be like, hey, our office is now going to be in New Jersey or next door to my house, right? There was a parameter. But it's also about what things matter to me enough to have an argument about. Right? Where the office was within a 10 block radius? No. Right. No. It's just not that important. There was a team that designed the office. Again, I have a door to my office. If I don't like it, I'll just shut the door. You know, like the thing, you know, so those are the things. you're always weighing in on the things that really matter. The things that you're like, whether it's red or blue, I think red, great.

37:10But if they pick blue, great. It's totally fine. Nothing's going to happen. And that's where I, if I had to have all those decisions in my head, I couldn't get up out of the bed in the morning. So I use what I want to really weigh in on and how much I want to say about it. And most of the time, it's not that important to me and there's somebody on this team that will make a very good decision. And if we think about building the image of a city, you know, you talked already about how many different sectors there are in the city alone. You're working also with the private, the public, the health, the city, et cetera, et cetera, right?

37:49How do you think about shaping that? You know, you talked about all of the big things that are happening this year with America's 250th and the World Cup, et cetera. you wanted the city to be the postcard that when people arrive, they say, I want to move here. I want to come back here. I had a great time. You should go check it out. How do you influence that? Yeah. So we, you know, 2026 was a very big left for Philly. Our goal was just to be the epicenter of the United States in 2026. You hadn't come here before that you would choose this year to come. and that if you hadn't been here in a very long time, that you would choose to come back and that people get to know us in a different way.

38:31And that took, as you said, people from the private sector, people from government, people from the nonprofit and philanthropy world. And we all had to kind of figure out together what those events look like, what the calendar looked like, how we're funding all of these things, how did it play within the state of Pennsylvania So it was one of us. Visit is a convener of a lot of those groups where we say, hey, we want you to come to this table. We set the vision. And then we know when it is our part to lead and when it is our part to follow. But we know that we are marketing a city that does not belong to us.

39:14No shops, no hotels, no streets belong to us. Our goal here is to get all those people that either own it or run it to come to the table and for us to set the vision and help everybody along and create that coalition. And I think we've done a really good job of that this year. We still have a few months to go, but so far it's done great. Our job at the end of this year would be to do both an economic impact study and a social impact study. Nine times people don't do that social impact study because they keep asking about the numbers. But these type of large investments you do for big years, marquee events, big development projects, aren't always just about the money.

40:01And when you do an economic impact report, you don't get that other narrative about brand, about marketing, about the short-term goals and those long-term wins. and what comes next. Now that you've done this in 2026, our job, we think, as Visit, is to bring those people back to the table. Here are the opportunities that we now have a chance to go after in the short term and the long term because of some of our wins here in 2026. And to say, what would we have done differently? Because we're going to go after something big again. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I think that, again, goes back to like being able to show vulnerability.

40:45So many times organizations just have to be like, make it all look like wins because otherwise like they're going to cut our budget next time. But to actually be able to say, here are things that we could have done better or didn't do at all or need to think about. And I really like what you're talking about, about almost there's a quantitative impact, but we can't skip the qualitative impact because it's almost equal, if not more important, based on then the word of mouth and everything that comes out of it. The other thing I was thinking about as you were talking to my husband was a criminal justice major in college.

41:16He has done nothing with that degree, but that's besides the point. But I remember him telling me about the broken windows theory about how if in a city there are broken windows, then there will tend to be more broken windows and more crime. And if you fix certain things like that or clean up trash off the street, like it's, you know, starts to kind of have a ripple effect. And that really sounds like a lot of what you guys are doing. You're almost that leader, that champion of the city that all of these smaller businesses, not small in size, but you know what I mean? Their individual cogs in the city's wheel all look to you to say, okay, what are we rallying behind?

41:50Yes. Yes. And your husband is absolutely right. You know, the street that has less litter and has streetlights that work feel safe. Right. Even if something has happened on that street, the feeling of safety is mostly what people are talking about. Right. And that is a very important thing to us. And to make sure everybody feels a sense of care in this city, whether or not you are a resident or a visitor, that sense of care can only be accomplished if all of us come to the table and do our part in this. and that's I think the role that we play and I think that's the role that has really started to become part of a lot of destination marketing organizations to really manage this destination not just for visitors but also for residents yeah and I call what we do now we are in the people attraction business it's not just a visitor It's not just somebody who might one day be a resident.

43:02It's anyone who comes to this place for whatever reason. That is the business that we are in. We all have lots of seasons in our lives where we will work and not work, where we are healthy and not healthy, where we are a visitor, where we are a resident. and someone has to be conscious of that fact that that is changing throughout our lives, but also that our lives after COVID have been one where they're blending together, where your day can consist of a lot of versions of that, where we can go on a work trip and also say I'm tacking on two or three days for a vacation, or where I am working from home where I am a resident, but I have an office in my house.

43:45I am now a worker and a resident, you know, those types of things. And I think that's what we're trying to really make sure this destination understands is that at the end of the day, it's the people first, that place. And we still have time left in 2026, this big banner year for the city. But as we look ahead, What is really exciting for Philadelphia in the future? So for us as an organization first, you'll know here at Philadelphia, we always do things a little bit differently. We still have two organizations. We have the Convention and Visitors Bureau, who focuses on conventions, meetings, international, national travel, marquee events.

44:30And then we are the destination marketing organization, marketing no sales. We have a separate convention center and we have a visitor center that's kind of boots on the ground, delivering on the promise. Those are four separate organizations with four separate websites. We are going to make one website, one front door. How cool is that? Art Alphia. So we're really excited about that. And that will premiere sometime in 2027, hopefully like around the spring. uh we are also um putting together right now it's a pilot it's called path to democracy so everyone has always been like why does boston have a freedom trail and philadelphia has nothing like this so path to democracy um is a pilot now but it is one of our legacy events or tours um That will take place moving forward in 2027.

45:29So right now the test, I think, is either four or six stops. It will eventually be 21 stops. It's very exciting. But one of the things that we're also going to be looking at is all of the momentum coming out of 2026. So a couple of things I'll mention for that is there are a lot of place-making programs that are happening. So we talked first about the Penns Landing Park cap that's going to be happening, but also there will be along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, which is our museum mile, there will be a placemaking program there making that more pedestrian friendly. they were all working on the historic district we call all these areas gateways that help you move throughout the city which we're very excited about we will also as a region uh be working with the regional marketing partnership to rebrand this region uh so that we are all singing from one voice like many other areas of the country um we have counties that surround us that uh we don't always see them as part of Philadelphia.

46:38But coming out of 2026 and how big World Cup was, we could not have done World Cup without our sister counties around us. And so what do we talk about together? Because visitors don't see county lines. So those are some of the things that we have on the stove, as I like to say, that we'll be serving up in the next year or two. Well, if I wasn't already packing a suitcase, I definitely am now. That's really exciting stuff coming up soon. Angela, I want to ask you the last three questions that I ask every guest. And the first is, what was the best hospitality experience that you have ever had? Easy.

47:17Going to Tokyo and Japan. What made it so fabulous? I mean, I guess, but. yeah we are just the most um thoughtful society consistent they most definitely are somebody who's trying to anticipate um your needs and you could just see it in every detail even the smallest thing you know i was in a store and when they realized i spoke english they just did like this and there's somebody that came up that could speak you know perfect english you never put your bag on the floor in a restaurant there's somebody who brings you a basket to put your purse and all of your personal belongings in and then scoots it right next to your table every morning when they realized i didn't drink coffee there was always tea from that one time tea every morning you know that was beautiful it's just a society that i think values uh putting others ahead of themselves.

48:19And it was just noticed. And it seems like everybody learned it at school. The people on the sidewalk learned. Yeah. On the flip side of amazing Japan, what was the worst hospitality experience you've ever had? Oh, I would probably say it's so bad because it's such a beautiful place. the Amalfi Coast, I did not get a great, I think they're just so used to tourists that they don't have to be that kind. It just, everything was a struggle, I think. You're the second person to bring up the Amalfi Coast in not a positive light. Yeah, I just, and I've always wanted to go, so I was disappointed for how it looked, but I just did not feel welcomed there.

49:10So it's a place I probably would not return. Yeah. Final question for you. What does hospitality mean to you? And is there anyone, it could be a person, it could be a brand that you think has truly mastered it? I think probably, and I've never flown them, but everybody says Singapore Airlines is masterful at hospitality. but I think probably I'll just go with the OG it's Walt Disney World you know I think they're just you know yes it's expensive I get it but they've been telling a story that has been a story everybody wants to hear and be a part of for decades and they have just a way of making both children and adults feel super special and I think they've just done a really great job throughout all the changes that have happened in our society that they have been able to sustain.

50:08And it's very, it is very impressive, the work that they have done and the influence they have had in our hospitality industry. Yeah. Angela, this has been great. Thank you so much for taking the time. And I'll see you in about four and a half hours, I suppose, once I pack my bag and get in the car. Call me when you get more. Thank you. Thanks so much. All right, everyone. It's time for today's sweet summary where I break down the key insights and actionable takeaways from today's conversation. Looking at Angela's impressive career, there is a clear through line, Philadelphia, which is why I was shocked to learn that when she first moved to the city, she didn't like it very much.

50:49Obviously, people are entitled to change their minds, and Angela's journey with Philadelphia is a good reminder that not every connection is instant. Sometimes the places, or even the people, we end up loving most are the ones we take the time to understand. And in a way, it makes her uniquely suited for this role. Who better to convince you to fall in love with the destination than a reformed skeptic herself? As Angela said, she's not really selling a place. She's selling a vibe. The data can prove in black and white that a city is getting safer each year. But if that's not the perception, if that's not how people feel when they visit, then it doesn't matter what any graph or chart shows.

51:35After she eventually fell in love with the city, she wanted to work for Visit Philadelphia so badly that, as she said, she would have been happy just to vacuum the floors. Instead of housekeeping though, she landed a role as both receptionist and executive assistant. Fast forward to today and she holds the company's top job. As her husband put it, she went from picking up calls to calling the shots. What's most inspiring about Angela's story is that she never envisioned herself as number one. She was very comfortable and successful being second. So much so that when the CEO role first became available, She didn't even apply.

52:15What changed between her passing on the opportunity and eventually landing that top job wasn't her resume. It wasn't her experience. It wasn't some new accolade or credential. She simply decided to stop letting fear make the decision for her. Once she landed the job, she recognized that she was joining the organization at an extraordinarily difficult time. So rather than bulldoze the team with her thoughts and plans, she led with empathy and vulnerability. She let the team pick where the new office would be, shared her own insecurities, talking openly about her dyslexia and what she needed from her team in order to be most effective herself.

52:58To me, that is real leadership. Knowing yourself well enough to ask for what you need and creating an environment where others feel comfortable doing the same. As Angela put it so eloquently, she's in the people attraction business. And is there anything more attractive in a destination or a person than authenticity? Philadelphia, she said, is a city where you're invited to come as you are. And really, at the end of the day, isn't that what hospitality is all about? And that concludes another episode of Sweet Success. If you enjoyed today's conversation, please subscribe, rate, and review the show.

53:37We all know how important those five-star reviews are. I also want to say a massive thank you to each and every one of you for tuning in. It means the absolute world to me. And I'd love to hear from you. If you have ideas for future guests, new topics to cover, or even just want to say hi, don't be shy. Message me through our website, sweetsuccesspodcast.com, or on social media, at sweetsuccesspodcast. That's sweet like hotel suite. Once again, I'm your host, Katie Klein, and I'm super excited to see you all next week. you