Author: Ann Minster

At a luncheon held at the Hilton, Wendeen is the keynote speaker moving from one roundtable to another, coaching lawyers on the cusp of partnership regarding four key strategies to make the cut.

Wendeen says, “On home, in business, and on the road, negotiations revolve around how much do you love me and who is boss.”  Well channeled competitive juices lead to finely tuned negotiating skills at home, in the workplace, and on the road, taking lessons she brought from her experience as an interviewer to the realms of politics and card rooms. Wendeen uses poker as a metaphor in her keynote speech in describing the four basic strategies one must master to become savvy in negotiations at any table. EOLIS Institute for Leadership customizes “people reading” seminars for law firms, legal departments, business groups, and individual executives.

Email emead@eolis.com for further information.

On the first business day in January 1995, Governor George Pataki invited Wendeen to lunch at his new digs on the 57th floor of World Trade Center 2.

He showed her around the offices and upon opening the door to a luxurious space with a drop dead view of the New York Harbor, proposed that she accept a position in the administration as First Assistant and Senior Advisor to the Governor.

It was an offer she could not refuse and a job to which she devoted herself as an independent thinker rather than a political appointee.

Mindful of the 1993 bombing below Tower One, Wendeen took the position of fire marshal seriously and began to educate herself on evacuation planning.

As the rebuilt World Trade Center now rises to become the tallest building in Manhattan, Wendeen recalls the idea for Hope’s Champion Task Force was inspired by her days in the Governor’s office – before their move uptown.

Last weekend Rick Marek, President of the prestigious real estate leasing boutique, Vortex Group,  hosted an  annual summer cocktail party with tall drinks and big servings of Wendeen’s homemade lobster salad at his luxurious Watermill spread.

Longtime friends, Rick and Wendeen began their respective careers in the same year–more than a few years ago and are known to visit with each other and mutual friends on Marek’s manicured lawn each summer. En route to the lawn this year, Wendeen chatted  up  a crowd  in the cook’s borrowed kitchen including  the likes of Latin rainmaking lawyer Carlos Mendez Penate and his wife Ellen who joined Rick and his weekend house guests for dinner and a rousing, yet polite, conversation on political hot button issues of the day.

Gotham’s preeminent political reporter Wayne Barrett leaves no stones unturned in covering New York City’s rich, famous, and powerful players, except when dining on porterhouse with a friend.

The legendary master in “digging deeper”, Wayne reminisces with Wendeen on his pursuit of inside information, dating back to her days in the august corridors of power within New York’s City Hall and onward in the Executive Chamber.

When Wayne is not working on the big story or participating in a televised round table, he pauses for dinner but never from his search for nuggets.  Today, he probes of all in his path on the never ending possibilities of Giuliani’s and Pataki’s future prospects.  Wendeen still listens and smiles.

Most know Wayne as a fearless muckraker; Wendeen knows him better as a gentle soul with lots of heart.

On a cloudless night before 9/11 changed the world, America’s Mayor chatted up Republican bigwigs and New York friends on a boatride that highlighted the view of the Twin Towers.  Tonight, he reflected on the bittersweet justice that has finally been done.

Effective April 9th 2018, Wendeen’s latest updated seminars, workshops, and one-on-one coaching sessions will transpose negotiating gambits into connected decision strategies for confernece rooms  courtrooms and situation rooms, alike. They are available for  law firm leaders, corporate management, governmentagency personnel and charitable events, in addition to law firm retreats.

Following a series of previews for attorney clients and individual CEO’s, last year, Wendeen Eolis  created an interactive seminar,  “Power Poker from the Board Room to the Card Room,  at the Friars Club*, for members of the elite Women’s Forum of New York (WFNY). It showcased an innovative and  evolving “playbook” for deal-making. This year she focuses on dealmaking as just one aspect of decision making.

Customized for the demographics of her audience, Wendeen’s workshops get to the heart of the matter, quickly, with a three-part program:  tips to assess negotiating DNA—yours and others;  a system for selecting the best decision-making strategy for you to drive your  deal to the finish line, and secrets to insure you play to YOUR personal strengths and conceal weaknesses every step of the way in today’s task and extrapoltae from winning moves opportunities to excel the next time around–in another arena

Designed for participants long on ambition and short on time to fine-tune negotiating strategies beyond conventional counsel, Wendeen’s, first tip to her mostly female audience at the traditionally male dominated Friars Club, was “Women often win more by bluffing less!” At the more personal workshops she hosts at organizer’s homes, where each attendee gets one-on-one attention,  Wendeen tells women about the slew of advantages  they bring to the table; she tells men they are naturals and paves the way  for more  nuance in decision making moves.

Wendeen knows from whence she speaks; inventor of the legal search industry and the first woman to be appointed 1st assistant to the Governor in New York State, she has been interviewing hard-to read lawyers for 50 years and navigating corridors of political power almost as long. and and she stands as the first woman to “cash” in the main event of the World Series of Poker. Wendeen counts 10 record-setting performances for a woman in major poker competitions around the world—in her spare time.

At the WFNY event, Wendeen got down to business quickly, calling on three eager attendees to leave the room while she assessed their “negotiating DNA,” based on a cursory review of their high-profile biographies, and a few tidbits of information gleaned in conversation with them at the earlier cocktail party.  She used  her basic theories about negotiating DNA, to guess the most and least favorite negotiating strategy of each one of them and proved her points when they returned. She guessed right–for all three of them.

Wendeen’s new programs move from negotiating strategies onward to the anatomy of decision making, with the same  upfront caveats  of last season: “Good listeners can be disastrous negotiators at any table unless they hear and process accurately.”

Revealing her “people- reading secrets” for women, at the Friars Club, one of New York’s last bastions of male rugged individualism, Wendeen got hearty laughs, and knowing applause when she explained how she overcame sexist abuse at her first poker tournament. She made a key decision on a hand, while staring at his most precious asset—not his chips.

Wendeen ticks off the surefire combination of verbal and behavioral people-reading techniques to master, offering a primer of clever tips and tells at a poker table that travel well back to the office. And, she includes her foolproof observation to determine, if a person is happy to meet you—within seconds of an introduction! Wendeen closed the seminar with her mantra, “Poker is a mind-bending game of bets, raises, calls, and folds that is only sometimes played with cards.” She says, “Briliant decision making is filled with nuanced poker principles.”

Wendeen’s seminars are not gambling events but private poker lessons can be arranged and special events can be customiuzed, to include a No Limit Texas Hold’em competition, with crib notes for the players,  You will fit right into a winner’s circle if you are an Alpha personality betting  your chips with highly calculated gusto!

Editor’s Note Note: Recognized as the “Grande Dame of Poker” at the legendary World Series of Poker, Wendeen is a celebrity player on Poker Night in America (CBS Sports Network). For further information and to book Wendeen: Email: ehote@eolis.com or Tel: 212-472-4000

**An earlier version of this article appeared in 2017, near the time Wendeen presented her new seminar for the Women’s Forum at the legendary Friars Club.