Beth Shapiro | Executive Director @ Citymeals on Wheels

TL;DR

Beth Shapiro recounts her nonlinear career path from a receptionist at Ogilvy to executive director of City Meals on Wheels, a nonprofit delivering meals to homebound elderly New Yorkers. She emphasizes that success comes from delivering excellent work (not just hard work), being genuine, and trusting mentors who believe in you before you believe in yourself.

Key insights

• The finance/account coordinator role (which she nearly flunked in college) was the only path around her inability to type fast enough for a secretarial job, and it taught her the financial underpinnin
• Her advertising skills transferred directly to nonprofit marketing, but she assumed the environment would be “softer” – it was a business that needed to be treated like one.
• She spent two years (including six months of focused searching) unsuccessfully trying to get a nonprofit job because employers did not see her for-profit skill set as matching their needs.