The Mission Deserves Better Leadership, Both in the Building and in the Boardroom
Pros
Invaluable mission, important conservation work, and a gem of a botanical garden.
Cons
It is hard to properly convey how disastrous the Board's decision to hire this CEO has been. These last few years have felt more like an executive internship than anything resembling qualified leadership. While the organization may have weathered that alone, with it has come a complete absence of ethics or basic judgment. Culture has collapsed into toxicity and dysfunction. An already under-resourced nonprofit now finds itself paying for a steady stream of consultants and investigations — all to resolve mismanaged situations with the CEO's fingerprints on them. Staff has learned that speaking truth to power comes at a personal cost. Institutional knowledge has been chased out the door. What little HR exists has been weaponized to justify restructuring decisions that were made long before any process began. Targeting of select employees has been encouraged. Retaliation against those who speak up has occurred. There were problems before. They were nothing like this. And despite being made fully aware of these issues, Board response has been performative and insufficient.
