Page 18 - 2019 Delegate Assembly Conference

General Session Luncheon
THE BOARD & CEO PARTNERSHIP
Working Together to Have the
Greatest Impact
Moderators: Catherine Meloy, President and CEO, and
James MacGregor, Board Member, Goodwill of Greater
Washington (DC)
Panelists: Daryl Campbell, President and CEO, and
Kerri Shroeder, Board Member, Seattle Goodwill
Industries (WA); Richmond Vincent, President and CEO,
and Guy Johnson, Board Chair, Goodwill Industries
of South Mississippi (Gulfport); and Steve Lufburrow,
President and CEO, and Tommy Moore, Board Chair,
Goodwill Industries of Houston (TX)
In a wide-ranging, candid conversation,
Goodwill CEOs and their board members
shared how boards have helped their
organizations' leaders resolve sticky situations,
discussed what motivates them when they
sign up for service on a Goodwill board, and
acknowledged what pet peeves CEOs have with
their body of invested advisors, and vice versa.
In her introduction, Catherine Meloy, president
and CEO of Goodwill of Greater Washington,
said the Delegate Assembly Planning
Committee had a single goal with the panel
discussion: to provide space where board
members and their CEOs could partner to
serve their communities. The session format
allowed moderator James MacGregor, a board
member of Goodwill of Greater Washington,
to ask some pre-determined questions of
the eight-member panel on which he also
participated, while Meloy read aloud questions
submitted by the audience.
Getting Out of Thorny Situations
When asked to identify an example of where
the board of directors helped them solve an
issue, Goodwill CEOs alternately pointed to
instances where their boards worked in tandem
with executive staff to solve large-scale
challenges as well as when board members
simply 'took one for the team.'
Thirty-three years ago, Steve Lufburrow took
the top job at Goodwill Industries of Houston
during a time when his mentors discouraged
him from letting the board of directors get too
involved.
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“I’ve had to really change,” Lufburrow said. “One
[area] where they rose to the top was when we
began to grow quickly. We worked together through
the pitfalls. We have come a long way as an
organization.”
His board chair, Tommy Moore, said Lufburrow’s
metamorphosis as a leader is a process. “He looks
at the board as a resource, not a police force,”
Moore said. “He’s realized he doesn’t need to be the
expert in every single thing — he can reach out to
the experts.”
Shortly after Richmond Vincent became president
and CEO of Goodwill Industries of South Mississippi
in 2016, he recommended to his board that
Goodwill fund other nonprofits located in areas
where Goodwill was not, thus serving people
on Goodwill’s behalf. Vincent — who had forged
improved relationships with the community and
educated others about Goodwill’s social enterprise
model — decided which organizations would
receive funding. But four months after the Goodwill
began funding other nonprofits, Vincent’s board
members began fielding questions from other
nonprofits asking why they weren’t getting funded.
“After the flak came, we decided to take the flak
off of him and take that decision off his plate,” said
Guy Johnson, board chair of the Gulfport Goodwill.
The lesson learned was to have the board be
responsible for funding decisions to avoid conflict
between the community and Vincent, who has
worked hard to re-build the reputation of Goodwill
Industries of South Mississippi.
Motivation for Serving on the Board
The reasons for board service are many, with board
directors pointing to the Goodwill mission and the
opportunity to marry their business acumen with
public service as motivating factors to volunteer.
Kerri Shroeder, the community credit executive for
Bank of America, identified her immigrant roots and
growing up raised by a single mother as reasons
why she joined the board of Seattle Goodwill
Industries last spring.
“I have personally lived the difference a job can
have in the life of a family. To give back was
important to me,” Shroeder said.