Consultant Spotlight Series: Shannon Tower

Shannon Tower is Vice President and a Principal Consultant at Gobel Group. We recently conducted an interview with her regarding her background and experience.

• • What did you do before joining Gobel Group?
    I spent nearly nine years building grateful patient programs at Johns Hopkins and Cleveland Clinic, where I mostly built new or struggling development programs into more sustainable grateful patient programs. Most recently, I was involved with billion-dollar campaigns at both institutions and was even personally responsible for a $100-million campaign goal.

• • Why did you decide to join Gobel Group?
    I actually worked for Chad at Cleveland Clinic about fourteen years ago, and I was a kind of “guinea pig” for all the metrics we now teach at Gobel. We stayed in touch, and then about five years ago, once I felt like I had accomplished what I wanted to accomplish at Hopkins, I left there and came to work with Chad.I really saw it as a major opportunity to help others. I love building programs, and the idea of helping to build a company – Gobel Group – and helping clients to build their programs was extremely motivating for me. At Gobel, I’m doing what I was doing at other major medical institutions in the past, just on a different scale.

• • How would you describe your consulting expertise?
    I’d say some of my main strengths are problem-solving and helping my clients think critically about their challenges. I also enjoy growing and improving programs, and affecting major change at institutions. I’ve never been one to simply maintain the status quo – I love pushing myself (and my clients) to improve and push the boundaries of what’s possible. There’s a certain intensity in creating something.

• • What excites you about working with Gobel Group’s clients?
    Working with the GRACE program, for one! GRACE is new and innovative – it’s something no one’s doing, and I love having the chance to coach my clients on understanding and implementing it. I find it incredibly rewarding when the program benefits them.Also, I used to be a fundraiser myself, so I do sort of live vicariously through my clients. I get so excited for them and for their missions, and I love watching these hospitals do great work. It’s thrilling when a new, cool project comes up, and my clients share their ideas with me.I also love working in healthcare. Before Cleveland Clinic and Johns Hopkins, I worked in three other organizations: one in higher education, one in land conservation, and one working with veterans. As much as I enjoyed these experiences, there was no natural constituency group. In some cases, you’d have to do a lot of mining in the public; and in others, you’d be working with an alumni base, which tends to be a very finite group to draw from. Both methods are very challenging. With healthcare philanthropy, it’s very different, and (for me, anyway) much more exciting. You just never know who you’re going to encounter that day – it could be anyone. You never know who’s going to have that extraordinary experience for which they’re grateful.

• • What do you find most rewarding about your work?
    I definitely think there are three main things: I find healthcare philanthropy to be dynamic and exciting; I love Gobel Group’s entrepreneurial spirit; and I enjoy having direct interaction with our clients and being able to help them in a specific way in order to make a big impact.
  • What are a few personal details you could share?
    I must admit, I’m a little shy about sharing things about myself! But I have two children, one who’s five and a half and another one who’s four. My husband and I spend a lot of time hanging out with them. We live in Annapolis, MD – so naturally, we love the water. We spend a lot of time with family and friends, and we get out on the water as much as we can.