Blog

Dear Docents and Volunteers,

It was so nice to connect with so many of you at the Docent Council meeting earlier this month. As I shared, one of my highest priority goals has been to build out our in-house team to meet the strategic goals of the organization and multi-faceted opportunities across Chicagoland. We have recently rolled out our new structure to staff this month and are in the process of transitioning several departments and roles.

As we reviewed our organizational structure, there were clear goals that drove decision making.

• Determine where best to position staff across the organization to foster clear lines of communication, accountability, and creativity to improve day-to-day collaboration.
• Identify redundancy in roles, gaps in our in-house expertise and need for greater efficiencies.
• Build out a new leadership team that will ensure the CAC remains competitive with opportunities to elevate talent.
• Position education as the cornerstone to our mission and ensure it’s streamlined with our adult learning initiatives.
• Examine and evolve our Operations team as we reach our 5-year anniversary at 111 E. Wacker to meet our future campus model and diversifying income streams.

As a result, we announced four core teams each led by a Chief Officer who will report into me as CEO and President.  These core teams reflect a reorganization of existing departments as follows.

1.     Finance: Accounting, Tourism, Sales, Retail, Events.  A CFO has been identified and is scheduled to start on June 12.  

2.     Creative Strategy: Marketing, Membership, Programs, Exhibits, Education.  I am pleased to announce the internal promotion of Lisa Nucci into this position. 

3.     Administration: Facilities, HR, IT, Policy Planning.  We have two final candidates for this Chief position, and have welcomed a new Director of Human Resources, Jamel Magee. 

4.     Advancement: Docents, Volunteers, Development, Board.  A Chief Advancement Officer has been identified and will start May 17. This person will be a key relationship builder and voice for the volunteer and docent communities and I’m excited to introduce you all to her in the coming weeks.

With this newly created structure, the decision was made to eliminate three roles: SVP of Education, Programming and Exhibits, Nicole Kowrach; VP of Operations, Michael Malak; and Manager of Teen Programs, Kennda Mims-Burt. We appreciate their contribution to the CAC and wish them well.

Our team is enthusiastic about this new way of working and we look forward to increased collaboration with our Docents and volunteers. 

Thank you,

Eleanor Gorski

CEO & President