Atop Capital's Guest lists, an Outsider: NYTimes

Quoted via NY Times:

THE holiday bash at the Phillips Collection art museum last week brimmed with bubbly and bold-faced names. But party people in the know breezed past the senators and television personalities to hover around a striking, willowy woman with a shimmering Oscar de la Renta dress and an unfamiliar face.

The woman was Desirée Rogers, the 49-year-old Chicago corporate executive and civic leader who streaked to the top of this city’s A-list last month when President-elect Barack Obama announced that she would take on the role of social secretary in his White House.

Ms. Rogers, an Obama fund-raiser and an executive at Allstate Financial, will oversee every White House social event from Easter egg hunts to lavish state dinners (along with those oh-so-important guest lists). An invitation to make her acquaintance has quickly become one of the most coveted accouterments among the political elite. more