Description: Social enterprises are acutely vulnerable to leadership transitions. As is the case with for-profits, any loss of talent poses a challenge. With nonprofits, the threat can be existential, because the organization’s brand and donor relationships are often tightly  intertwined with the leader’s persona.

These transitions are inevitable, whether you dread them or prepare for them. Using case studies drawn from the presenters’ extensive experience, this interactive session will lay out the strategies that nonprofit legal counsel and board members can employ to make the best of a leadership transition, uncovering the opportunity that can be found in every challenge.

Recommended Audience: Nonprofit legal counsel; nonprofit board members

Presenters:

Kathleen Yazbak is president of Viewcrest Advisors (www.viewcrestadvisors.com). She brings more than twenty-five years experience building the talent strategies of high-impact philanthropies and social sector organizations as well as at mission-driven corporations. Before founding Viewcrest Advisors, she spent nearly a decade at The Bridgespan Group, an affiliate of Bain & Company where she created and built a search practice, and partnered on numerous articles and toolkits. She has been widely quoted on leadership topics in Forbes, Bloomberg Business Week, The New York Times and The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Kathleen previously worked with several boutique search firms, and earlier in her career for major global firms, Whitehead Mann (in London), and Heidrick & Struggles (in Paris). Kathleen is a proud board member of the nationally recognized Riverview School in East Sandwich, Massachusetts.

Stephen Pratt is president of Impact Catalysts (www.impactcatalysts.co), a strategic partner to social enterprises and philanthropies. Steve has more than three decades of experience in nonprofit leadership, having served as CEO of two direct service organizations, two capacity-building intermediaries, and a scholarship foundation. He has also had a role in the founding of six social impact ventures and has served as a resource for early stage social entrepreneurs and seasoned executives of multi-service agencies. Steve has led a range of consulting engagements in the areas of education and youth, housing and homelessness, workforce development, civic engagement and advocacy, and health care. He has written extensively on nonprofit strategy and leadership, financial sustainability, and performance measurement. Steve serves as Vice Chair of Food For Free, a food security organization serving eastern Massachusetts, and is a member of the development committee for The Community Builders, a national affordable housing developer.