Genifer Gray (front right) takes part in Women's Golf Day at the New York Stock Exchange. Courtesy Genifer Gray
When people who make their living in golf talk about their starts in the game, the stories are often about the parents who put a club in their hands for the first time or the PGA professionals who gave them their first lessons.
But for Genifer Gray, chief operating officer of Global Topgolf Venues, the basis for her rather heady position in the sport comes largely from the times the Georgia native stood on a kitchen stool as a little girl while her grandmother prepared meals for her family and later watched her mom and aunts do the same thing. Gray also set the table and watch dishes afterward.
“I only have one brother,” Gray said. “But my mom was one of 10 kids and my dad one of six. So I had lots of cousins, and there was a pretty big group whenever we gathered for meals."
Hospitality always has been in her blood, she adds. And in many ways,...