By Maria Saporta
As published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on June 7, 2019
The Harvard Business School Club of Atlanta has selected the 2019 winners of its Social Enterprise Initiative Scholarships – an annual program that grants local nonprofit leaders access to executive education courses at Harvard Business School. The SEI scholarship recipients who will attend Harvard Business School courses this summer are:
- Emily Acker, CEO of Hillside Inc.;
- Robin Chanin, executive director and co-founder of the Global Growers Network;
- Stacey Greene-Koehnke, COO of the Atlanta Community Food Bank;
- Kwame Johnson, CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters Metro Atlanta;
- Alieizoria Redd, executive director of the Covenant House Georgia; and
- Emily Thompson, vice president of community programs for CHRIS 180.
Since its inception in 1997, the Club has awarded 89 outstanding nonprofit leaders in Georgia with the SEI Scholarship.
“Core to our school’s mission is educating and enabling leaders who will make a difference in the world,” says Ed Shartar, vice president of Social Enterprise Initiatives of HBSCA. “We are honored and proud to support these incredible individuals who are making a positive impact on our community.”
The scholarship recipients will attend either the Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management or Performance Measurement for Effective Management of Nonprofit Organizations program.
Those programs provide leaders with tools to improve the effectiveness of their organizations by building an understanding of and applying core management concepts essential to leading a nonprofit organization. Delta Air Lines, a long-term partner of the scholarship program, will be donating round-trip airfare from Atlanta to Boston for all scholarship recipients.
Harvard Business School Club of Atlanta, established in the 1930s, is one of the largest HBS alumni clubs worldwide. It serves more than 1,200 alumni in the Atlanta metropolitan area.
Junior League of Atlanta board
Andrea N. Smith is the new president of the Junior League of Atlanta, a 103-year-old organization with 3,000 women members.
Smith, a 10-year JLA veteran with an extensive background in nonprofit leadership and fundraising, will serve for the organization’s 2019-2020 annual term.
“The Junior League of Atlanta has been a catalyst for positive community change in Atlanta for more than a century,” Smith said. “We are the place for service-minded women to make a difference in the city, and by continuing to empower and equip these women to become leaders in the league and in their communities, we will exponentially grow the impact we have on the city.”
The organization also announced other leaders on its 2019-2020 board.
Bre West will serve as president-elect; Michelle Wells will be the sustainer representative; Holly Portier will be the advisory planning chair; Quiana Riche-Clark will serve as assistant to the president; Melissa Brogdon will be recording secretary; Jane Batcheller will be parliamentarian; Dr. Yvette Dupree will be the nominating chair; Sharon Klien will be director of support services, and Fran Coward will serve as director of impacts and measurements.
The vice presidents of the board will include Joy Dyess, Macie Thompson, Eva Keough, Erica Franko, Maranie Brown, Chaundra Luckett and Shaw O’Neill.
“I am in awe of the women we work with every day in the JLA,” Smith said in a statement, “It is invigorating to work alongside a force of diverse and civic-minded women who are so passionately focused on the health and well being of women and children within their community, while also placing an emphasis on developing themselves and empowering others.”
JLA volunteers will commit more than 100,000 hours in the community through various partners working in the areas of generational poverty, early childhood education and commercial sexual exploitation/human trafficking.
AGLCC hires first executive director
The Atlanta Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce has named Chris Lugo as the organization’s first executive director.
Lugo and his husband recently moved to Atlanta to be closer to family. Lugo previously served as executive director of the Cavaliers, a nonprofit organization in Chicago dedicated to developing young leaders through the performing arts.
“This is a major milestone in our 25-year history as an organization,” said Petrina Bloodworth, AGLCC’s newly-appointed president. “We have relied heavily on the vision and availability of volunteers to collaboratively drive our organization forward with incredible success. The addition of a full-time executive director will help the AGLCC build relationships with our LGBTQ+ non-profit community partners, local business and political leaders, as well as other chamber leaders in the region.”
The AGLCC started its nationwide search for an executive director last December.
“Chris stood out as a leader in the interview process because of his experience leading non-profits,” said Michael Daniels, AGLCC’s vice president, “but also because of his deep curiosity about the organization and the solutions he presented right out of the gate for evaluating programs and helping our business members grow.”
