Exec Life
RETURN ON INVESTMENT
Native App Tiffany Moore, who was raised on Detroit’s west side by a single mother and a group called the “godmothers,” helps lead the Consumer Technology Association. BY TOM MURRAY
COURTESY CONSUMER TECHNOLOGY ASSOCIATION
T
iffany Moore’s title at the Consumer Technology Association is senior vice president of political and industry affairs — which means an array of different responsibilities fall under her purview. CTA, formerly the Consumer Electronics Association, is a trade group that represents the $505 billion consumer technology industry in the United States. The sector supports more than 18 million jobs. Moore is not only in charge of advocating CTA’s efforts at the federal level, which impacts the consumer technology industry, but she also oversees its political strategy and programs, including its political action committee. In addition, she leads an internal team responsible for the launch and management of a $10 million fund that’s focused on supporting women and venture funds that invest in women, people of color, and other underrepresented entrepreneurs. It’s all in a day’s work for a woman who happily recalls her early days growing up in Detroit. “I guess my fondest memories are my neighborhood, which was near Seven Mile and Greenfield roads,” Moore says. “I remember walking to Perry’s, which was the drug store at one corner, and then you went toward Eight Mile and there was Shields Pizza, where my mother would sometimes splurge and get us pizza.” Moore was an only child, and her mother played a critical role in her life, first and foremost by the example she set for her daughter. “She was a single mother and she worked her tail off,” Moore says. “My mother was the inspiration for everything. She worked her entire career as an executive secretary at Rockwell International in Troy. “But there was also a group of women who, along with her, raised me in Detroit. They effectually became known as my ‘godmothers.’ They played a role in picking me up from school, dropping me off, and making sure I got where I needed to go when my mother was working.”
OPERATING NETWORK Tiffany Moore planned to pursue a career in foreign service after graduating from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. With no offers and running out of options, in the spring of 1996 she switched gears and joined the office of then-U.S. Congressman Fred Upton.
Moore was barely out of diapers when she first met one of her godmothers. “I went to Sleepy Hollow Educational Centers for preschool and Dr. Johnnye Summerville was my kindergarten teacher,” Moore says. “She was the epitome of what a kindergarten teacher should be; she inspired curiosity and excitement. I was a smart kid but I also needed some focus, and she cared so much about her students. We all got personal attention, and she became a great family friend who knew me my entire life and inspired a curiosity in learning.” Moore continued her education at several Detroit schools — first at Burt Elementary, then St. Scholastica, and finally at Christ the King. “When I was 12 or 13, the city was going through some challenges and my mother wanted me to be able to go to a good high school. So we moved to Rochester and ended up sharing a townhouse with one of her coworkers, and I went to Rochester High School.” Following graduation, Moore enrolled at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, where she pursued a curious double major: Spanish and Japanese. “I was the first in my family to go to college, and my mother wanted me to get a business degree. She didn’t think I would ever find a job with language degrees. But I had an amazing Spanish teacher at Rochester High; her name was Gay Wittenstrom. I took (Spanish) every year and loved it. “So it just seemed very natural to continue with it. And then I studied in Japan at the University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies in the summer of 1995, which was actually the 50th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” As it turned out, the value of Moore’s decision to double-major in two languages was solidified even before her memorable summer in Japan. “In August of 1993, I’d just completed my freshman year at Western and declared my Spanish major, and was probably just starting my first Japanese language class,” she says. “I made my first trip to Washington, D.C., on a bus, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the March on Washington. And I knew I needed to be in Washington, D.C.” Fast-forward to the spring of 1996, when Moore graduated from college. At the time, she was solely focused on a career in the foreign service, where she hoped to travel the world. She researched any job in Washington that seemed to offer that opportunity, and flooded the city with resumes. “The day before I moved to D.C., I still didn’t have a job,” Moore says. “Then I got a call from then-Congressman Fred Upton’s office, telling me to give them a call when I got to D.C.” Upton, whose district covered Kalamazoo, had noted the return address on Moore’s resume. July - August 2024 || DBUSINESS.COM 79