JFS President and CEO Yana Vishnitsky has announced that she will retire in January, 2017.
Vishnitsky has served the agency for 37 years and held her current role for 15 years.
JFS has achieved significant success and growth under her leadership.
In 2000, the agency had a $4.8 million budget and provided services to nearly 8,000 people.
Fifteen years later, those numbers have nearly tripled; the 2015 budget was $14.4 million and the agency served nearly 25,000 people.
Vishnitsky, who was a patent attorney and mechanical engineer in St. Petersburg, Russia, moved to Denver in 1978. Her Russian education and degrees meant very little in this country, but she was fluent in English.
She started working at JFS just a few days after she arrived in Denver, as a translator and case manager. Her job was assisting hundreds of Russian émigrés adapt to life in Colorado.
Vishnitsky went back to school and received an undergraduate social work degree from CSU and a graduate degree from Smith College.
She completed her post-graduate training at the Denver Institute of Psychoanalysis and became a psychotherapist.
After serving as director of the Russian Resettlement department and the associate executive director at JFS, she became president and CEO of the agency in 2000.
My decision to retire is bittersweet, Vishnitsky says. A part of me cannot imagine a life without JFS, but after 37 years, the time has come.
I will be leaving JFS in excellent hands, with strong leadership and a capable, dedicated staff. The agency is in sound financial health and has a thoughtful strategic direction moving forward.
Jane E Rosenbaum, JFS board chair, says, Yana has had everything to do with the remarkable success of JFS over the past 37 years. Shell be leaving a legacy of leadership, excellence, growth and service to our community.
The JFS board of directors will launch a thoughtful process to identify and hire Yanas successor, beginning with appointing a search committee made up of current and former board members.
