Breck Knauft, Executive Director
March 15, 2022

VYCC thinks deeply about leadership – how we nurture leadership in Corps Members, and how different models of leadership serve a growing and increasingly diverse Corps community. Leadership, after all, takes on many forms and expressions.

At VYCC, we’re committed to creating both the conditions for Corps Members to emerge as leaders, and to envision different models of leadership to nurture the talents of our staff. What is important for Members, is also good for the broader organization.

It is with these thoughts in mind that we are excited to share news about a shift in VYCC’s leadership structure, one that will make VYCC an ever-stronger, more effective, and more dynamic community.

Please join us in celebrating our new (and additional) Executive Director, Leah Mital. Where VYCC has had one Executive Director for 36 years, we now have two. Leah has been with VYCC for just over a year now and her contributions are hard to capture in words. She is as fearless as she is caring, she is purposeful and fun. She is as committed to getting things done as she is to carving out time to simply connect with people.

Leah’s career prior to VYCC has been an intersection of transformational learning, conservation work, collaboration among community organizations, food security, and late adolescent/young adult development. She co-founded Vermont Commons School in 1997; and has worked on multiple sides of service-learning partnerships as instructor, community partner, program developer, and fundraiser. To get to know Leah, you can read her staff bio or send her a welcoming note at Leah.Mital@vycc.org.

Over this past year, Leah and I have established a trusting and effective partnership where she is focused primarily on internal operations (systems, people, culture) while I’m focused on external priorities (fundraising, partnerships, legislative outreach). By making this shift formal and public, we are celebrating what we inherently know about leadership – that it’s best when it includes multiple voices and ideas. This new structure provides not just additional capacity; it places an emphasis on collaboration, creativity, and direct support to staff.

A mentor once told me that educators speak the language of what is possible. Our new structure has us speaking a language of possibilities without limiting ourselves by the way things have always been. Now is a time to speak this language, and set out to make new possibilities come true.

Leah and I look forward to hearing from you and to realizing a bold future for VYCC!