C06 Session: Executive Transition Mgmt Services

Executive Transition Management Services: Step-by-Step Workshop for Implementing in Your Practice

Thursday, August 3, 2:15pm - 5:30pm

Track:  Capacity Building Models and Strategies

Presenters

Tom Adams, TransitionGuides; Lynne Molnar, Third Sector New England; Vernetta Walker, BoardSource

Description

Executive leadership transitions are challenging and risky for organizations and offer unique challenges to consultants assisting organizations during that often turbulent and ripe period. The number and complexity of leadership transitions are increasing. Nonprofits across sectors, size and geography are already feeling the first wave of the Baby Boom Generation exit from executive leadership positions.  In every community, a number of esteemed and relied upon long-term leaders have stepped out of their leadership role. And many more will follow them over the next five years. Consistently 10-12% of nonprofit executives leave their positions annually; the generation shift will increase this % even further.

Executive Transition Management's time is here! This emerging form of organizational capacity building has quickly established itself and is growing rapidly across America. The number of organizations using ETM services, the investment in the services by funders and the number of ETM providers is growing and will continue to grow.  Think back thirty years and very few nonprofit organizations were guided by a strategic plan. That practice is now firmly established. Executive Transition Management services are an emerging capacity building practice with similar transformative power for individual organizations and the sector.

This workshop provides a practice and research-based introduction to Executive Transition Management consulting, a growing capacity building strategy responsive to the aging baby-boom leadership exodus and increasing change in nonprofit leadership nationally and locally. Participants will be introduced to a step by step review of the Executive Transition Management process for working with nonprofit boards in planning for and successfully completing a change in executive director/top staff leadership.

The workshop offers consultants and management support organization managers lessons on how to develop or expand a succession planning and executive transition services consulting practice. The workshop also includes a quick overview of lessons learned from 12 years of research and field practice as well as from the recent work of the Annie E. Casey Foundation on this topic.

This workshop provides an overview of a three phase approach to Executive Transition Management and incorporates William Bridges work on change and transition.

About the Presenters

Tom Adams, TransitionGuides

Tom Adams is the President of Adams & Associates LLC dba TransitionGuides, a consulting collaborative specializing in developing and providing leadership transition and succession planning services to nonprofit organizations. Through TransitionGuides, Tom and his colleagues offer executive transition services around the country and are leaders in the development and growth of Executive Transition Management as an organizational capacity building strategy. TransitionGuides has assisted over 100 nonprofit organizations in successfully completing a leadership transition. Clients include local, regional and national nonprofit organizations from a wide variety of mission areas (advocacy, housing and community development, children and family and other human services, associations, environmental, health, education and philanthropy among others) and include a program to serve grantees of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and member organizations of the Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations and the Center for Nonprofit Advancement) (a regional association of nonprofit organizations in the Washington DC metro area).

Tom is a national thought leader, speaker and trainer on leadership and leadership transition topics and has published extensively including articles in the Nonprofit Quarterly, the Stanford Journal for Social Innovation and two monographs (Capturing the Power of Leadership Change and Founder Transitions: Creating Good Endings and New Beginnings).TransitionGuides is a leader in developing educational workshops on leadership transition topics for boards, executives and funders. Over 100 long-term and founding executive directors have attended TransitionGuides flagship two-day Next Steps workshop, which provides executives an opportunity to learn and network with peers on this sensitive topic. TransitionGuides website (www.transitiongudies.com) is the "go to" resource on this topic and includes a calendar of upcoming workshops.

Prior to launching his consulting practice, Tom directed a five-year national field research project for Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation, a national organization in the community development field, supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation focused on executive and board leadership changes in community-based nonprofit organizations. As part of this project, he studied executive transition in over a hundred organizations in three regions of country and did hands-on comprehensive executive transition work with a dozen organizations. This resulted in the three-phase approach to executive transition, which has evolved into Executive Transition Management. Earlier in his career, he was the first executive director of Neighborhood Housing Services of Baltimore.

Lynne Molnar, Third Sector New England

Lynne Molnar is the Managing Director of the Executive Transitions Program (ETP) at Third Sector New England. ETP grew out of the realization by a group of Southern New England funders in 2002 that the departure of an executive director can be stressful for an organization. This time of change can become an exciting opportunity for an organization to review and renew its mission and program directions.

Holding graduate degrees in both business (Boston University) and education (Harvard Graduate School of Education), Lynne comes to her position with 30 years of nonprofit experience, including eleven years as a management consultant, involved in seven executive director transitions, and served at various times as supervisor, controller and executive director.

Vernetta Walker, BoardSource

Vernetta Walker is a governance consultant for BoardSource.  In this position, Vernetta provides project management, consulting, and training services to major clients, on governance and emerging trends and developments in the nonprofit sector.  Vernetta brings a broad depth of knowledge to BoardSource, having served as Director of Consulting and Contract Training and Associate General Counsel for the Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations.  Her areas of expertise include board governance, nonprofit legal compliance, organizational structure, and nonprofit advocacy. 

Prior to joining Maryland Nonprofits, Vernetta was Foundation Advocacy Counsel for the Alliance for Justice and trained boards of directors and staff from foundations and nonprofits across the country on federal tax laws pertaining to lobbying, election-related activities, and advocacy.  She also was a contributing author for Investing in Change: A Funder's Guide to Supporting Advocacy, an Alliance for Justice publication (2004).

Vernetta practiced law in Orlando, Florida, for several years and served as a grant program director for five years at the Florida Bar Foundation.  She also has served on several boards, including Planned Parenthood and Lynx (Orlando's regional transportation authority).  She received her J.D. from Washington University School of Law, St. Louis, MO, and her B.A. from the University of Maryland, College Park, MD.  She is admitted to the Florida and Maryland state bars.