Hi! I am
Susan Robertson, CAE
I am on the Consultant Team at Bostrom
Association and Foundation Leadership Development | Group and Individual Facilitation for Insights and Direction | Assessing and Shifting Culture | Internal & External Executive Communications
Prior to joining the Bostrom consulting team, I was the President & CEO of the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE). I have over 30 years of professional and trade association experience along with a solid track record solving a broad range of real-time association challenges. My goal in all consulting engagements is to create positive and lasting impact, bringing clarity to complex situations, and helping association leaders fulfill their organizations’ missions. I understand the unique needs of association leaders and what it takes to hone and grow those skills to achieve peak organizational performance. I believe that meaningful, productive client relationships require trust, gaining insight before offering advice on matters both small and large, and an endless commitment to driving results – all to enable association leaders and their organizations to thrive.
Susan Robertson, CAE, is the former President & CEO of the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE), a 48,000-member professional society serving association leaders to solve real-time challenges, fulfill their missions and impact society. During her 20+ year career with ASAE, Susan held progressively more responsible positions including providing oversight to the ASAE Research Foundation and ASAE’s for-profit subsidiary, ASAE Business Services, Inc. She remains a passionate believer in the association profession and promoter of the positive influence they have on the world.
After her departure from ASAE in 2021, Susan served as the Interim CEO of the Society of Public Health Educators. In addition, she was an advisor to for-profit companies seeking to build business within the association marketplace.
Prior to joining ASAE in 2001, Susan was the Vice President of Marketing and Communications at U.S. Office Products, a DC-based multi-billion-dollar for profit and publicly traded, international business products company.
Additional highlights of her early association career include serving as Executive Director of the National Dealer Alliance (NDA), a US-based membership organization of contract furniture dealers that collectively generated more than $265 million in annual sales. Prior to leading the NDA, she was a business advisor, program developer and educator with the National Office Products Association.
Susan holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Maryland and is a Certified Association Executive in good standing.
Susan and her husband, Mike, live in Mount Vernon, Virginia.
Beyond Bostrom
My Interests
With a little more time on my hands since leaving a fulltime career, I have become an avid gardener. This does not mean that I am particularly good at it, but I am learning and experimenting!
Beyond this, I love travel, entertaining, music and reading. Time to read is a luxury that I thoroughly enjoy and still must work hard to create.
I could talk for days about
Associations – the good they do for the world to solve the complex problems confronting us every day. Associations touch our individual lives each day in ways we may not realize. Yet, without their work and influence, the world would not be as safe, strong, smart and fast as it has the potential to be.
Finding, encouraging and developing young leaders in any industry.
You wouldn’t know if you didn’t ask
My undergraduate degree is in Experiment Foods and Food Science. Like almost everyone else who lands in the association profession, I started out with a different path in mind. I guess I should have waited for the Food Network to be created before I abandoned my plans to become a recipe developer and work in a test kitchen!