Planning for leadership succession is imperative for Jewish nonprofits

I came to work at the JCC on Sept. 1, greeting passersby from our membership and staff before heading to my office. I turned on my laptop and began tackling daily tasks with the sense of purpose that had defined my tenure for nearly a quarter of a century. Yet something was markedly different. For the first time in 9,000 days, I was no longer the JCC’s CEO.

While our executive transition was formalized at the JCC’s annual meeting the evening before, the process of leadership succession and the long-term strategic partnership between our lay and professional leadership to develop internal talent is something that I have begun to reflect upon with great satisfaction.

Succession planning is the defined approach to an inevitable transition of leadership. Its Jewish roots go back to biblical times with the transition of Moses and Joshua, two unique individuals with different assets to lead community. Moses played a pivotal role in the transition, elevating Joshua’s visibility and promoting his leadership qualities. But while internal leadership succession is well established within the private sector (where roughly 70% of CEO succession is groomed from within), intentional succession strategies have historically been far less established within the nonprofit sector, including Jewish institutions.

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This began to change in 2014, when a consortium of national Jewish foundations and executive leaders published the groundbreaking report “Leadership Pipelines Initiative.” It noted the sobering reality that upward of 75% of executives planned to leave their positions over the next five to seven years, with few organizations having any form of succession plan in place or established program to groom executive talent within their organization. The emerging crisis was intensified as there were fewer experienced CEO candidates to potentially replace them. In short order, Leading Edge was founded, a groundbreaking organization designed as a central address for talent and culture in the Jewish sector.

The report was a wake-up call for me to acknowledge our internal vulnerability while recognizing the potential within our own workforce to formalize a strategy. In partnership with lay leadership and several key donors, we began a formal Talent Management program just as Leading Edge was being formed. We began assessing our internal talent pool and formalizing growth plans for those professionals we believed could further their leadership. When we recruited from the outside to fill key positions, these individuals were assessed and groomed for further growth. Such was the case when our now CEO, Jason Kunzman, was selected through a national search for the role of chief program officer in 2016. In that search, we prioritized candidates whom we believed had the aptitude and capacity over time to become the CEO. Since joining us, Jason’s enhanced internal responsibilities, increased public roles and ultimate selection as a Mandel Foundation Executive Leadership Program Fellow provided the kind of seasoning I could only have dreamt of when I was hired by the JCC in 1998.

Talent development cannot be limited to the CEO role. In an organization as diverse and complex as ours, we require a highly competent, skilled management team prepared to lead the scope of services for the JCC of today with the vision to plan and build for the JCC of tomorrow. Of our current management team, two-thirds have been promoted internally through our talent strategy accompanied by a less hierarchical approach to decision making. This evolution will certainly intensify in the coming months and years, with my unequivocal endorsement.

Ten years ago was a lonely time for me professionally. We prepared for the retirement of two long-tenured senior team members and saw additional management vulnerabilities. Executive colleagues in other communities would privately lament the increasing demands of their position and a widening gap between the performance expectations of their role and the capabilities of their management teams. Our board worried about the JCC’s “bench strength” and challenged me to focus on our talent base over the coming years. Well — that time has come.

As I transition to a new role at my beloved JCC after a lengthy executive tenure, I am sanguine by a new CEO and management team that is “pound for pound” the highest performing group of professionals with whom I have ever worked. They have collectively carried our agency through some of the greatest challenges we have faced in our 128-year history and are poised to take our mission and impact to new heights. My passion for talent development will continue here in Pittsburgh and in my ongoing supplemental role at JCC Association of North America, where I plan to share our Pittsburgh experience and champion a strategic talent model for our field built far more on “we” than “me.” PJC

Brian Schreiber is the former CEO of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh and now serves as its chief external affairs officer and special advisor to the CEO.