Get To Know Your Board: Vanessa Manners and Stephanie Elliott
Stephanie Elliott
After fifteen years in sales, Stephanie Elliott understands a lesson many never fully embrace: patience is not the opposite of ambition; it’s what sustains success. As Vice President of Sales at Vanguard Commercial Flooring and a longtime CREW Atlanta member, she has built her reputation not on speed, but on consistency—showing up for people and for the organization that helped shape her career.
Her counsel to people just starting out cuts against the usual hustle-culture script: work hard, yes, but never rush a relationship. Trust compounds slowly, and she's built a career (by her own account a happier one) by refusing to shortcut the process of building that trust. It's telling that when asked about a different professional path, she doesn't reach for something unrelated. She notes that she may have built a business around sales training and development, helping people get better at what they do.
Outside the office, Stephanie’s enthusiasm for life is evident in everything from her hobbies to her bucket list. She's skydived once ("once was enough," she'll tell you) and fills her free hours
fishing, gardening, cooking, and chasing a better golf swing. She wants to get serious about photography or painting. The Galápagos sits at the top of her travel list. And when asked what superpower she'd choose, she skips right past strength and speed for something quieter: the ability to slow down time, if only to hold onto more moments with her kids. For someone whose career runs on momentum, it's a clarifying answer about what she values.
Stephanie's blend of authenticity and people-first leadership makes her a genuine asset to the CREW Atlanta board.
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Vanessa Manners
Ask anyone in commercial real estate what actually drives a career forward, and the smart ones will tell you it isn't the deal – it’s the relationship that made the deal possible. Vanessa Manners has built her career on that principle. As Regional Marketing Director at Transwestern and a ten-year CREW Atlanta member, she's made a habit of connecting people, solving problems, and showing up with a fresh perspective when many find themselves stuck in old patterns.
Her advice to newcomers is disarmingly simple: invest in your network before you think you need to. In an industry that can reward transactional thinking, Vanessa is a case study in the opposite approach, treating relationships as the actual infrastructure of a career (not just a nice-to-have around its edges). Those connections, she says, become lifelong friendships and resources she draws on at every stage. It's a philosophy that aligns well with the mission of our organization and arguably the engine to CREW Atlanta’s success.
The curiosity that makes her good at her job doesn't stop when she clocks out. Vanessa reads voraciously (55 books is her target for 2026) and jokes that in another life she would be a bookseller. It's easy to see how that passion for discovering new stories connects to the superpower she'd most like to possess: "instant clarity," the ability to walk into any situation and immediately understand the bigger picture. Whether she's immersed in a novel or navigating a business challenge, Vanessa is driven by a desire to make sense of what lies beneath the surface. That same curiosity has inspired unforgettable experiences like swimming with sharks and skydiving – it even fuels her fascination with one of life's greatest unanswered questions: whether we are truly alone in the universe.
Vanessa's combination of thoughtful leadership, intellectual curiosity, and genuine enthusiasm for learning makes her a valued member of the CREW Atlanta community. We are grateful for the perspective she brings to the board and are excited to feature her this month.