Her Story
About Elise
I became mayor first in 2008 and have been elected five times in South Carolina, which is in the lowest 1% for women's power and influence in the United States. One of my proudest recent accomplishments is that we just signed a contract to get a Thomas Dambo troll, a giant sculpture by a Danish artist made out of reclaimed materials that will help bring more economic development to our city than anything else we could have done. Some of the most important work to me that's made a difference is I built in a lot of ways for our residents to have voices so that their voice was what was guiding us as we led our city, and that it wasn't that way before I got here. I also simultaneously did a lot of things that supported our employees who were not supported before I got in office. We have been able to have some of the lowest taxes and fees in the entire region but still have a good quality of life. Beyond my mayoral work, the other thing that is most important to me is the work that I do globally through the Substack 'Elected Fee' that is meant to empower women around the world. I've largely done this work as the guest of embassies around the world. I stepped back on the TEDx stage with a talk titled 'The One Thing That Can Make Every City and Town Better,' which is about making a better balance of men and women in office. My first TEDx talk was in 2015 called 'You Should Run for Political Office.'
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Elise
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to several things. One is my background in a master's in public health, where we learned how to take somebody or a group of people from where they are to where they want to be, and that's the same thing I do as mayor - just not all health-related. It's about understanding who the informal community leaders are and how you get the voice of the people that want to do something so you can know where they want to go and help lead them there. The other thing is, when I first became mayor, my kids were 2 and 3. I could come home from our community meetings and it might have been the most amazing thing that we just did for our city, and my kids didn't care about that, they just cared about me. Similarly, I could have had the worst day trying to help our city, the toughest day, and I come home, and again, they don't care about that, they just cared about me and they loved me. It was really grounding in that way to be able to keep perspective on what this is and what this isn't. I think it's really hard for people sometimes to step into these roles and not get a big head.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
First of all, I would say we need you. You gotta do it. We need you. And if you think about any volunteering that you're doing, it's a really bold, crazy thing to say, but I want to tell women, stop it. Stop doing that and run for elected office, because if you run for elected office, you fix these systemic things that are causing those problems, like domestic violence, or homelessness, or childhood hunger, all those things. If we get in positions of power, we don't just treat the symptoms, we can fix the problems. And women will do that. When I first became mayor, my comfort zone was so far in my rearview mirror I couldn't even see it any longer, and there were lots of great women who said, you know, keep going, and here's suggestions, and here's resources.
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