Women run nearly a quarter of Vail Resorts properties, and they continue to play key leadership roles within the company. But it wasn’t always typical to find female leaders in the ski industry.
A couple of decades ago, some people had difficulty grasping the concept. Pat Campbell, Vail Resorts’ current strategic advisor, recalled the response of men she once rode the chairlift with in Breckenridge. When she told them she ran the resort, they assumed she meant she worked in human resources. But no, she was the chief operating officer and executive vice president, a role she began in 2009. By then, she’d led nearby Keystone for three years before moving to Breckenridge.
Campbell joined Vail Resorts in 1999 as the director of Breckenridge’s ski school. She entered the ski industry out of college, in 1985, as an instructor at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort — one of more extreme mountains in the nation. Now, in addition to being Vail Resort’s strategic advisor, she’s the first female chair of the National Ski Areas Association Board and serves on the US Ski & Snowboard Foundation Board of Trustees.
Her path wasn’t easy.
“I had ambition. I wanted to contribute. I wanted to do more, and yet I also felt like I needed to fit in. There was a culture and a norm in my workplaces that required you to kind of be tough and hang with the guys and really fit in,” she said. “And I would say for many years — and for many women that’s true, it was true for me — it means you can’t show up as your authentic self at work when you’re doing that. And if you’re not showing up as your authentic self, you’re probably not performing to your best.”
As she moved up the ranks, she began feeling more confident in revealing her true nature. Throughout the years, programs she helped develop at Vail Resorts paved the way for other women to “take off their mask” and show up in genuine ways without worrying solely about fitting into male-dominated gender norms.
“One of the things we find is that when women can show up more authentically that they can express empathy in a more authentic way,” she said. “I think in a very male-dominated culture, empathy is not at the forefront of leadership, and it’s something that I discovered along the way that your employees definitely are looking for. They want you to understand their experience, to understand what they’re going through. Those kind of soft skills were really not prioritized or emphasized under a more male-dominated leadership approach, and I think it just allows people to express a higher level of emotional intelligence and connect with a broader variety of employees and guests authentically.”
Campbell helped develop the Women in Leadership program in 2015, but it didn’t include men. When POWDER (an acronym for Providing Opportunity for Women through Diversity) launched in 2018, it welcomed men into the discussion.
“There was certainly tension around (Women in Leadership) — everything from men joking about, ‘Oh, ya know, what are you guys doing, it’s some secret club that we’re not allowed to know what you’re doing,’ and I think that happens any time when people aren’t included, so I think it was important to open the doors and let people come in and be a part of understanding the whys — why don’t we have more women doing this, why don’t we have more women doing that — and share their experience about gender inclusion,” she said, adding that through POWDER, men became excited and engaged in increasing inclusivity. “(We recognized) everyone has to be involved.”
Campbell and others eventually rolled out the Women & Allies Employee Resource Group, which influences change in policies, practices and culture to cultivate an inclusive environment at Vail Resorts.
“I reached a point where I was able to say, ‘You know what, I don’t have to fight for myself anymore. I’m feeling pretty good about where I am, and I can start really fighting for other people and the change that needs to happen for them to have an easier path than I did,'” she said.
Though Park City Mountain Vice President and COO Deirdra Walsh views Vail Resorts as a leader in inclusion, she added that there’s “much more work to be done.”
It’s a sentiment many, like Campbell, share.
“It’s really important to listen and ask questions, like why are certain functions within the ski industry so male dominated, and why don’t women stay?” Campbell said. “People look at our successive bar and think, ‘Oh wow, they’ve done it,’ and there’s all these highly visible female leaders in big roles running resorts. The reality is: Unless you put a sustainable system deep into the organization, you won’t be building the bench deeper within the organization that will result in this sustainable talent pool for women coming up.”
Women leaders are still rare enough that there’s an expression Campbell and plenty of others use: “When you’re the only.”
“Many of our senior women who have been around awhile, they can all tell you stories about being the only one in the room with a female perspective, the only one in the room with their experience as a female in our business, and that’s really helpful for the organization to have women who’ve had that experience in leadership roles so they can advocate for change that needs to happen in the organization,” she said. “They also have the ability, because they’ve been in it as the ‘only,’ to recognize things that those in the majority see as normal that maybe are barriers to inclusion — things like bias and micro-aggression that they’ve experienced. A lot of times those things are embedded in a culture, and many people don’t even recognize that they are obstacles for women to be successful or move up in their careers.”
Now, leaders like Walsh, Vail Resorts’ Chief Executive Officer Kirsten Lynch and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Angela Korch are inspiring role models.
“They’re tangible examples of what women can achieve in not just Vail Resorts, but also the entire ski industry. If you can see it, you can be it, and we’ve struggled with that up until, let’s say, the last decade, and it has a huge impact,” Campbell said. “I’m always looking for opportunities to bring new talent and bring new perspectives in. To be clear, it’s not just about throwing women into the deep end of the pool. You have to make sure that you recognize the potential and you provide the support for them to be successful.”
“It’s important for people to see themselves represented in all levels of leadership. Seeing leaders like Deirdra Walsh at Park City Mountain, Beth Howard at Vail Mountain or Tara Schoedinger at Crested Butte Mountain Resort shows our team and women following the sport what is possible,” said Nadia Guerriero, senior vice president of Vail Resorts’ Mountain Division for the Rockies. “We have been on a journey to intentionally develop and empower female leaders at Vail Resorts. We know we’ll be a stronger company and better industry with more diverse viewpoints, and the sport will be more resilient with broader engagement. My own experience participating in programs like Women in Leadership at Vail Resorts, as well as mentorship and sponsorship from both men and women, helped me grow and advance in my career.”
She, Campbell and plenty of others remain committed to furthering diversity.
“I think we’re truly a role model not only in the ski industry but even beyond that at this point. I couldn’t be more proud of the women and men who’ve made that possible. And we’re not done,” she said. “We have to keep at it, keep up. It extends beyond gender. It’s about all inclusion: How do we make sure all people have the opportunity to unlock their potential in our organization if they want to be a part of it.”
“Elevating women into leadership roles at Vail Resorts has been a very intentional effort over a long time, and there will always be more work to be done — not just in this space, but in all aspects of inclusivity,” Walsh said