She Leads with Empathy
by Jill Cousins
Talli Dippold laughs when she thinks about all the times she has been asked about her seemingly unusual career switch from hospitality management to Holocaust education. But for Talli, the Holocaust Memorial Resource & Education Center of Florida’s new CEO, the transition wasn’t as big a stretch as it might seem.
After spending the past seven years as a respected Holocaust center director and educator in Charlotte, North Carolina, Talli took over as CEO of the Maitland campus in July, replacing interim CEO Shelley Lauten.
“People always ask me, ‘How’d you go from hospitality to Holocaust? Is it because they both start with H?’” Talli says with a grin. “Noooo! It’s not like I was looking in the Rolodex and was like, ‘Okay, that didn’t work out, so what’s next?’”
The career transition was actually quite natural for Talli, who was born in Israel but spent much of her childhood living in Chicago and New Hampshire. In her eyes, the hospitality industry and Holocaust education have a lot in common.
“Hospitality management is all about human behavior and how we treat one another,” says Talli, 47. “One of the most important areas for me is empathy. And there’s no better place to learn empathy than in hospitality management.”
And, Talli says, there’s no better place to apply it than Holocaust education.
Talli’s empathy for Holocaust survivors started at a very early age. Both of her parents were born in Poland after World War II, and all four of her grandparents were Holocaust survivors.
“I’ve always been very passionate about Holocaust education — about the understanding that people have a moral compass,” Talli says. “So it really was a very personal mission for me to educate about the past with the hopes of creating a future that was more just and equitable for everyone – not just the Jewish community.”
From the Queen City to Our City
Talli’s first opportunity to work in a Jewish community came about in 2008 after she and her husband John and their three children moved to Charlotte from Phoenix, Arizona. Anya (now 19 years old), Ethan (18), and Sasha (17) were just 5, 4, and 3 at the time. Almost immediately after arriving in North Carolina, Talli got a job as director of a Judaic library and resource center.
During those next few years, Talli began developing Holocaust curriculum. She worked with educators and parents of home-schooled students, as well as Holocaust survivors. That’s when she met a man named Stan Greenspon who had funded a study through the Jewish Federation of Greater Charlotte to research the possibility of opening a new Holocaust resource center there.
Talli began working on the project with Stan and even traveled to various Holocaust centers – including our own in Maitland – as part of her research. When The Stan Greenspon Holocaust and Social Justice Education Center opened in Charlotte a few years later, Talli became its director.
“I’m a huge believer that people act differently when they use their inner moral compass and think about how their behavior affects the people around them,” Talli says, “and that’s what Holocaust education is about.”
Talli received a B.S. in Hospitality Management from the University of New Hampshire and a master’s degree in Holocaust and Genocide Studies from Gratz College in Philadelphia. As the CEO here in Central Florida, she will oversee the construction of the new Holocaust Museum for Hope and Humanity, a one-of-a-kind center in downtown Orlando – designed around survivor testimonies – that will eventually replace the Maitland museum.
“This is already an established organization, with deep roots and a well-respected track record in the Holocaust education community,” Talli says. “So, to lead this organization into its next phase with this new state-of-the-art museum, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I just couldn’t pass it up!”