The Constant Behind the Success: Lauren Costello Marks a Milestone After 17 Years Shaping APEX and IFSA
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Somewhere high above Shanghai, APEX and IFSA Executive Director Lauren Costello revealed something years of global events, board meetings and industry challenges had apparently failed to expose.
She was afraid of heights. APEX Group CEO Dr. Joe Leader discovered that detail when the two found themselves atop a glass tower during an industry event. The moment stayed with him partly because it contrasted so sharply with the Costello he had come to know professionally: a leader routinely trusted with difficult situations, competing priorities and two associations whose global stakeholders brought no shortage of perspectives.
Today, August 28, Costello marks a milestone birthday. The occasion gives APEX and IFSA reason to celebrate her personally, but it also illuminates a much larger story. More than 17 years after she entered the APEX organization, Costello has become one of the most important sources of continuity behind both associations.
Her career stretched across changing leadership structures, expanding organizational responsibilities and an aviation industry that repeatedly forced its associations to adapt. Through that evolution, Costello did more than remain. Her role grew with the work. “Both APEX and IFSA are stronger today because Lauren has poured her heart, soul and an extraordinary part of her career into both associations,” Leader said.
Her longevity supplied an easy statistic. The more revealing story lay in what happened during those years, and why colleagues increasingly turned toward Costello when circumstances became complicated.
From Programs to Greater Responsibility
Costello’s APEX career began in 2009, when she joined the organization over programs and services, advanced to APEX General Manager, and then added her responsibilities concurrently as IFSA Executive Director in 2018.
Longtime colleague and friend Robin Applebaum watched much of that evolution firsthand. Applebaum described having a “front-row seat” as Costello progressed from someone learning the ropes into the leader eventually entrusted with both APEX and IFSA. That view extended well beyond meeting rooms.
Years in a global industry produced a collection of memories that would have looked unusual on any executive résumé: sledding in the Northern Circle of Finland, raising glasses in Irish pubs, exploring pyramids in Mexico and singing karaoke in Los Angeles. Those experiences also captured something central to association leadership. The work unfolded through governance, programs, standards and events, but relationships stitched those elements together. Costello spent years building both.
Applebaum saw the professional and personal sides at close range. “What I think of is how Lauren shows up: with care, professionalism, and genuine kindness, for the work and for every person she works with.”
That quality became increasingly important as Costello moved from delivering programs toward carrying broader institutional responsibility. Colleagues described someone who listened closely, absorbed the dimensions of a problem and then focused on what needed to happen next. The pattern would matter particularly when IFSA needed greater leadership continuity.
A Stabilizing Presence for IFSA
Leader recalled a period when turnover in IFSA’s Executive Director position had become a concern. He strongly advocated for Costello to assume leadership, believing she could provide the consistency the association needed.
Costello was appointed IFSA Executive Director in August 2017, beginning what this month marks a nine-year tenure of sustained leadership and impact. Leader identified her as the longest-serving Executive Director in IFSA history, a distinction that reflects both the longevity of her service and the depth of her influence on the association.
Continuity mattered because IFSA’s work stretched across a complex international constituency. Members operated within different markets, regulatory environments and business priorities. Food, beverage and onboard services carried practical consequences that extended from passenger experience to health, safety and government policy.
Costello found particular meaning in that side of the association’s mission. Leader pointed to her engagement with IFSA World Food Safety standards and the government work connected with them as an example of initiatives whose influence reached well outside a conventional association calendar. That connection between organizational work and broader industry outcomes helped explain why IFSA represented more than another executive title.
Molly Alton Mullins, who has worked with Costello for four years, watched her manage the demands created by two associations, global stakeholders, divergent viewpoints and major initiatives. She pointed not simply to Costello’s ability to handle volume, but to the way she handled it. “What stands out most is her collaborative leadership style, commitment to service, and dedication to delivering exceptional results for her members and partners.”
The combination of continuity and collaboration gave Costello an unusual place inside IFSA. Her tenure carried institutional memory, but she also continued navigating new priorities rather than simply preserving established practices.
“What I think of is how Lauren shows up: with care, professionalism, and genuine kindness, for the work and for every person she works with.”
– Robin Applebaum
Selecting APEX’s Leader
Leader’s working relationship with Costello began from another direction. He first met her when he successfully interviewed with the Board of Directors for the APEX CEO role when Costello engaged with him during the final interview. They clicked, Leader recalled, and thereafter developed a strong working partnership that later placed both of them at the center of major leadership decisions involving APEX and IFSA. When IFSA needed continuity, he pushed for Costello. When APEX later needed an Executive Director, he again saw her as the answer. “Seventeen years later, neither association could imagine the organization without her,” Leader said.
That statement carries extra weight because Costello had not reached her position through one dramatic appointment. Her influence had accumulated over time, program by program, problem by problem and relationship by relationship.
For APEX and IFSA, APEX Commercial Director Steve O’Connor emphasized something more practical: Costello’s instinct for understanding what a complicated situation requires and then helping people move through it. He also stressed that her impact extends well beyond organizational performance. “Lauren’s impact goes far beyond what she accomplishes for APEX and IFSA. What I value most is the way she looks after the people doing the work,” O’Connor shared. “Even when the pressure is high, she creates clarity, makes people feel supported and somehow makes the whole load feel lighter. That has made a real difference to all of us who have had the privilege of working alongside her.”
Applebaum summarized the effect more simply. “Lauren makes hard things look easy and makes the people around her better.”
The first half described performance. The second described influence. Organizations could measure attendance, membership, revenue, standards development, engagement and program output. The effect a leader had on the people around her resisted such straightforward measurement. Yet that theme surfaced repeatedly in the reflections collected for Costello’s milestone: she listened, collaborated, cared about colleagues and made difficult work feel more manageable.
Composure Without Complacency
Leading APEX and IFSA placed Costello at the center of organizations with different constituencies but overlapping demands. Global stakeholders brought different expectations. Members viewed priorities through different operational lenses. Major initiatives required coordination across companies, countries and disciplines. Even routine association work could involve complex tradeoffs once member interests, governance requirements and industry pressures converged.
Costello’s colleagues repeatedly returned to her composure in those circumstances. O’Connor highlighted the way she first took stock of a situation instead of reacting prematurely. Alton Mullins emphasized judgment, professionalism and a collaborative approach. Applebaum focused on the care and kindness Costello brought to people around her.
Those qualities did not eliminate complexity. They changed how the work moved through it. “She approaches every challenge with grace, positivity, and a genuine desire to help others succeed,” Alton Mullins said.
That approach helped explain why Costello increasingly became a source of organizational continuity. Her tenure did not unfold because the associations around her stood still. Quite the opposite: her career advanced because changing circumstances repeatedly created new problems to solve and new responsibilities to carry.
Her leadership also crossed a line that often separates management from service. The standards and government-engagement work within IFSA illustrated how an association could influence conditions far beyond its own events calendar. Costello’s interest in that dimension suggested why the work retained meaning after so many years: the responsibilities connected back to members, colleagues and industry outcomes rather than titles alone.
A Career Measured in People as Well as Years
More than 17 years inevitably accumulated stories. There were the major organizational moments, including leadership transitions, expanding responsibility and the challenge of managing two associations. Then there were the memories that appeared nowhere on an organizational chart: the North Pole, Irish pubs, Mexican pyramids, Los Angeles karaoke and one memorable encounter with altitude in Shanghai.
Together, they described a career lived inside a global industry rather than simply administered from its edges. Applebaum had watched that evolution from early in Costello’s APEX tenure. The person she knew as a colleague eventually became a friend. The professional journey she had observed went from learning an organization to helping lead two of them.
The Next Chapter
A milestone birthday naturally invites a look backward. On Costello’s birthday today, she looks forward to the next years of challenges as she remains actively in command of APEX and IFSA association leadership, still caring for the work colleagues have spent years watching her successfully navigate. Members and partners will have another opportunity to celebrate with her at the upcoming IFSA Global EXPO in Dallas, adding one more gathering to a career already filled with them.
And after more than 17 years of solving complicated problems for APEX and IFSA, one vulnerability apparently remains reassuringly intact.
Heights can still get to her. Complex organizations never make her break a sweat.