The President’s Council: Where Frontline Ideas Help Company Initiatives Take Flight!

By Assoc Hospitality Consultant Emily Sims

Southwest’s former President and CEO Gary Kelly served on President Obama’s jobs council—a council the former President created with about 50 of the nation’s most successful CEOs. The council’s purpose was to learn about the success of the companies to potentially take some of their ideas to create more jobs in America. Gary found value in bringing a group together to identify opportunities and provide potential solutions and wanted to do something similar at Southwest with our Frontline Employees. In 2014, he founded the President’s Council.

SVP Operations & Hospitality Steve Goldberg welcomed the fourth President’s Council into session earlier this year. The group includes 50 Frontline Employees who applied and were selected to represent their peers from the following workgroups: Cargo, Customer Support & Services (CS&S), Flight Operations, Ground Ops, Inflight Operations, Network Operations Control (NOC), and Technical Operations.

These members come to our Corporate Campus in Dallas quarterly from more than 20 locations across the network to serve as strategic liaisons for their workgroup. They hear from Leaders about Company initiatives and projects, including how to drive impactful change, identify opportunities, and share solutions. In years past, members participated in reevaluating the Employee Journey with the Employee Experience Team, tested the “Great Work” mobile app for SWAG, and identified areas of improvement for The Turn with Operational Leadership, to name a few. Time permitting, they also volunteer in the local community while in Dallas.

To learn more, visit the President’s Council SWALife page

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