It was more than 30 years ago when Victoria Gillespie began her professional career as a branch manager in the financial services industry.

During her tenure, Gillespie held senior-level sales and marketing posts at Sandy Spring Bank and Realtors Federal Credit Union, and specialized in residential sales as a Realtor herself. After joining the National Association of Realtors staff in late 2018, Gillespie complately transformed the once-siloed marketing, communications and events staff into a single, cohesive group whose output is strategically driven and unified in look, feel, tone and messaging. Under Gillespie’s leadership as chief marketing and communications officer, NAR launched “That’s Who We R,” its most successful consumer advertising campaign to date with over 2.34 billion impressions and 42.4 million social media engagements. In the last 12 months, Gillespie developed a new structure for the more than 70-person group, organizing it into multiple disciplines while setting the tone thanks to her vibrant personality, high energy and tireless drive. She also led efforts that required coordinating content from more than a dozen key subject matter experts across the association to ensure that all messaging disseminated added value, helped members become or remain successful in the real estate industry, and reinforced what NAR is doing on members’ behalf.