The Educopia Institute is pleased to announce that effective October 1, 2022, Racquel Asante, Katherine Kim, and Jessica Meyerson have been appointed co-directors of Educopia Institute. The selection of Asante, Kim, and Meyerson to serve as co-directors represents a shift away from a traditional single Executive Director position to a shared leadership model. The new model divides the Executive Director responsibilities across the new co-leaders, providing shared strategic vision and each managing an organization-wide portfolio that is distinct but complementary:
Racquel Asante, co-director, supporting finance and people operations
Katherine Kim, co-director, supporting research, consulting, and project management
Jessica Meyerson, co-director, supporting development, and community cultivation
The decision to transition to a new model of leadership was approved by the Educopia board following a proposal from staff that outlined the way staff were already sharing executive responsibilities. The staff, in conjunction with the board, undertook a research and interview process that included conversations with organizations that had successfully implemented a shared leadership strategy to share their experiences and advice. The key takeaway from these interviews was that shared leadership could support Educopia’s organizational development, including improved resilience, fiscal responsibility, values alignment, and risk management.
Board president Kathleen Fitzpatrick notes that “during the course of our development work it became clear to us that the time was right to think differently about the nature of leadership for the organization, to move away from reliance on a single visionary executive director and toward a shared leadership model that could both better manifest Educopia’s values and make the organization more resilient.”
Educopia is committed to transparency in our organizational transition to ducopia’s organizational transition, we have already made a public commitment to keep our constituents and stakeholders informed and to share lessons and processes publicly. To learn more about Educopia’s process toward a shared leadership model, please read our post “Introducing our Shared Leadership Model.”
About Educopia Institute
Educopia Institute empowers collaborative communities to create, share, and preserve knowledge. Educopia also develops and manages applied research projects that benefit our affiliated communities and the broader information fields of libraries, archives, and museums. Learn more at https://educopia.org and follow us on Twitter.