Former Zulu queen Desiree Rogers named White House social secretary

by Jonathan Tilove, The Times-Picayune
Tuesday November 25, 2008, 7:35 AM
Jennifer Zdon, The Times-PicayuneDesiree Rogers, daughter of late City Councilman Roy Glapion, was named White House social secretary Monday.
WASHINGTON -- Desiree Rogers, a former New Orleans Zulu queen and daughter of the late city councilman Roy Glapion Jr., was named incoming White House social secretary on Monday by President-elect Barack Obama.
In a statement Monday announcing the Rogers' appointment, Obama and wife Michelle highlighted Rogers' qualifications as one of Chicago's most high-powered executives, a former head of the Illinois Lottery, former president of the Chicago utility, Peoples Energy, and most recently president of social networking for Allstate Financial.
What the statement didn't mention is that Rogers, 49, is a native New Orleanian who twice was queen of the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club, a krewe dating back to 1916. She was queen of Zulu in 1988, and in 2000 reprised the reign in honor of her father, who died about two and a half months earlier.
Glapion, a former director of sports for the New Orleans public schools and member of the New Orleans City Council from 1994 until his death in 1999, was instrumental in leading the Zulu krewe from a dwindling band of fewer than 100 black men in the early 1970s to a robust, financially healthy and racially integrated krewe. Over the course of many years, Glapion served variously as finance chairman, president and chairman of the Zulu board.
Rogers is a pillar of the Chicago business and social scene -- a friend to Barack and Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey and Valerie Jarrett, the Obama confidante from Chicago who is co-chairing the transition effort and will serve as a senior adviser to the president in the new administration.
Rogers' new job will require all her business and social skills. Her office will be responsible for every ceremony and event that occurs at the White House, from state dinners on down. On Nov. 14, she threw a birthday party for Jarrett attended by the president-elect.
Rogers is a regular on lists of the most powerful African-American female executives in America.
Much of her work in her new job will be hand-in-glove with Michelle Obama, a friend of long standing from the same social circle in Chicago.
Rogers' former husband, John Rogers, is chairman and CEO of Ariel Capital Management in Chicago, the nation's first African-American-owned money management company. John Rogers is very close to the Obamas and a major fundraiser for Obama's Senate and presidential campaigns. He played basketball with Michelle's brother Craig Robinson, at Princeton, and played basketball with Sen. Obama on Election Day. He is co-chairman of the inaugural committee.
The Rogers have a daughter, Victoria, who is a student at Yale University.
Desiree Rogers received her undergraduate degree at Wellesley College and her MBA from Harvard University.
In a 2004 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Rogers said the best advice she ever received from her parents is that "nothing is ever impossible."
Her mother, Joyce, now retired, ran day-care centers and was also active in Carnival. She is known as a great cook and entertainer. Rogers' brother, Roy A. Glapion, an engineer, is senior vice president of Professional Service Industries Inc., and is active in New Orleans civic affairs. Both her brother and mother live in New Orleans.
According to an interview last year with the HistoryMakers, an African-American oral history project, Rogers' favorite color is black, her favorite food is chicken and her favorite saying is "laissez les bon temps rouler."
Jonathan Tilove can be reached at jtilove@timespicayune.com or 202.383.7827.
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