Report of the Executive Director Selection Advisory Committee
Tammy Allen, Milt Hakel, Bill Macey (co-chair), Fred Oswald (co-chair), Ann Marie Ryan, Neal Schmitt, Nancy Tippins
In an email to the SIOP membership just a few weeks ago, SIOP President Steve Kozlowski announced the retirement of Dave Nershi as SIOP Executive Director (ED). In that same email, Steve further announced the formation of an ED Search Steering Committee (SC) comprising SIOP’s senior elected leaders including Steve, Fred Oswald, Jose Cortina (until April 2016), and Scott Tannenbaum with overall responsibility to guide and advise the Selection Adviso- ry Committee (SAC). Fred Oswald will serve as liaison to the SC on behalf of the SAC. The composition of the SAC was designed to draw on prior executive leadership in SIOP (i.e., past SIOP presidents); encompass expertise in selection, assessment, and leadership; and—across SAC members—to represent a diverse group of I-O psychologists. SAC has full control over the oper- ational aspects of the search process and will determine the final pool of candidates for selection. The role of the SC is to link the search process to the SIOP Executive Board (EB). Elected members of the EB will ultimately select the next ED from the candidate pool developed by the SAC.
As difficult as it is to accept the news that Dave is retiring, it’s also hard to believe that 12 years ago the SIOP Executive Committee embarked on the daunting process of recruiting, selecting, and assessing potential candidates for the ED position. At that time, a small committee (including two members of the present SAC) created a process that ultimately led to Dave’s recruitment and subsequent hire. Though time has passed, the overall timeline and phases of the current effort are likely to follow a similar track.
As an outline of what needs to get done, it’s useful to consider the timeline of events in reverse order. Dave will retire on May 1, 2017 after the annual conference. In order to benefit from working alongside Dave, the incoming ED should join the AO team some time before that, just as Dave joined a short time before Lee Hakel’s retirement in 2005. That means that hiring of the new ED should necessarily be completed early in 2017. Again working in reverse order, the role of the SAC will be to recommend a slate of candidates to the SC with suffi- cient time for review and consideration in December 2016. The assessment process is planned to begin in early October 2016, with vacancy announcement and recruit- ment beginning in June. Prior to that, the SAC will determine the requirements of the job, including consideration of ways in which the AO may likely change with re- spect to continuing growth of the Society and any strategic partnerships SIOP is likely to form. The job analysis and subsequent specifications for the vacancy will be completed by end of May 2016, leaving suffi- cient time for review and feedback from the SC and subsequent revision by us.
Along the way, will keep you informed of progress as the process unfolds. None of what is described above is set in stone, and we are mindful of the different member constituencies who share a common stake in the success of this effort, perhaps with varying perspectives on what defines the most critical aspects defining that success. Your comments and suggestions are always welcome. Please direct them to Bill Macey (wmacey9@gmail.com). For obvious reasons we can’t guarantee we can adopt any specific idea, but we fully intend to give full consideration to your input.
Dave will be sorely missed by many people for many reasons. So much of what we now take for granted as simply the way things work in SIOP is what Dave and his team at the Administrative Office (AO) have instituted and refined. Dave’s role is and has been a critical and demanding one, and we are fully cognizant of the de- mands on us as an organization to successfully identify his replacement.