Shifting roles at Wild Animal Initiative
January 6, 2022
As we transition to a new year at Wild Animal Initiative, I’m happy to announce another kind of transition in our workplace: next week, on January 10, I will be transitioning away from my role as executive director to begin a new role as strategy director. Cameron Meyer Shorb will serve as interim executive director until we make a permanent selection, a process we plan to launch in May and wrap up around August.
Although leadership changes are sometimes perceived as times of difficulty for organizations, this change is one I’m really excited about, both for myself and for the organization. It is because the organization is doing so well that I felt it was a good moment to initiate a change we have been contemplating for a while.
I have greatly enjoyed serving as executive director over the past two years, and stewarded the organization through a period of enormous growth. And I’m really proud of what the team has accomplished while I’ve been ED. We’ve launched the first research funding program to ever focus entirely on the wellbeing of wild individuals, we’ve earned ACE Top Charity status two years running, and we’ve grown our staff and fundraising efforts to get closer to the scale of our ambitions. I couldn’t be more honored to have led this team in such an important period for our organization.
However, two considerations — one temporary, one permanent — led me to believe I could best serve Wild Animal Initiative in a different capacity.
A temporary consideration: throughout my time as ED I have only been able to contribute part-time, as I’ve been simultaneously pursuing a PhD in Engineering Mechanics from Virginia Tech. I have prioritized my responsibilities to Wild Animal Initiative over those of my PhD, and as a result, need more time to focus on my degree to complete it next semester. My time being split between these two jobs was worse for Wild Animal Initiative than if I could serve as ED full time, and in this respect, I’m very happy to hand the reins over to someone who can dedicate a full workweek to leading the organization.
A permanent consideration: my experiences as ED have shown me the enormous value organizations can gain by separating the responsibilities for daily oversight and decision making from responsibilities for overseeing the long-term strategy. As Wild Animal Initiative has grown, so have our operational needs. The urgencies of immediate management concerns have started to push longer-term strategy questions further from my desk, and a number of strategic projects and initiatives are waiting for me to give them my full attention. Additionally, I see my comparative advantage as being more in the realm of strategy than in daily oversight. As strategy director, I will be focusing my efforts on the type of work I most enjoy, and at which I am most skilled.
In September of last year, I began a sabbatical to focus on my PhD, and my time on sabbatical allowed me to develop these thoughts. During that time, Cameron led the organization excellently, and will do an amazing job over the next 5 months, while I work on finishing my PhD and ease into my duties as strategy director. Then, in May, I will rejoin the staff full-time and support the board in running the search for a new executive director. While I have full confidence that Cameron could handle the role of executive director permanently, he and I agree that we want to take this opportunity to see if there might also be other excellent leaders with new skill sets and knowledge that would benefit our team.
It has truly been a wonderful experience working with everyone at Wild Animal Initiative — we have a tremendously friendly and talented team, along with our great donors without whom none of our work would be possible. I am so excited I will be continuing to be a part of the Wild Animal Initiative team, while pursuing an exciting and necessary role supporting the organization's strategic imperatives.
Please read on for an additional perspective from interim Executive Director Cameron Meyer Shorb, and board President Christine Perry.
A note from Cam
I just wanted to chime in with a few more thoughts on why I’m excited about our upcoming leadership changes.
Mal has been everything you could ask for in an executive director. They lead with both a strong vision of their own and a careful consideration for others’ ideas. They see deep compassion for their coworkers’ needs as the only logical conclusion of the pragmatism they bring to all aspects of our mission. They are my favorite person to disagree with, because they're happy to work together to choose the best idea.
These are the same reasons I can’t wait to have them as strategy director. There’s no one I’d trust more to step back and take a clear-eyed look at our organization: to inform our strategy with empirical evidence, to discover better ways to support wild animal welfare research, and to help us decide when we need to pivot away from familiar, but no longer valuable, work areas.
Although this shift was inspired by logistics (the timing of Mal’s PhD research), it’s the perfect opportunity to reassess the needs of our team and to find the best person to meet those needs. We’ve doubled in size since Mal took the helm, and we’re on track to double again over the next year or so. Maybe that requires a different approach, maybe it doesn’t. Either way, it’s a luxury to have the freedom to question our assumptions at this critical juncture.
In the meantime, I’m honored and delighted that I get to serve this team as interim executive director. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I first stepped up to the role (when Mal was on sabbatical this fall), but I found I could contribute as much or more to the team as I did before. Now — with even more financial gifts than we hoped for in 2021, with several new projects ready to launch, and with a clear path to even more impact for animals if our community continues to increase its support — I could hardly ask for a better time to help this team succeed.
And if you’ve read this far, odds are you’re one of the supporters that put Wild Animal Initiative in this position to succeed. I’m feeling particularly grateful for the trust you’ve placed in us, because that’s what makes it possible for us to make pivots like these whenever we think they’ll pay off for animals in the end. I can’t wait to see what this year will bring!
A note from Christine
As president of the Wild Animal Initiative board, I am sincerely grateful to both Mal and Cam for their thoughtful approach to this transition. It is a sign of a healthy organization when its leadership are empowered to be proactive and pivot cohesively to ensure the best possibility of reaching their own goals, along with the organization’s. It is an exciting time for Wild Animal Initiative and on behalf of the board, we look forward to a bright future of meaningful progress for wild animals.