When Hannah Rosenthal arrives to become chief executive officer/president of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation in October, interim executive director Sheryl Primakow will have a new job.
Primakow will become the chief operations officer, a new position created in the course of the MJF Reimagining and restructuring process.
As Primakow explained in an interview on July 23, “The strong feeling [among MJF leaders] was that if our new CEO is going to oversee the financial resource development area and be out in the community and working with donors and community members, we need someone that could be more on the inside, overseeing the day-to-day operations of the organization, as well as making sure that that outreach function is firmly in place and integrated, so that it can support the fund-raising efforts.”
As COO, Primakow also will have an evaluation role, to make sure the MJF stays “an ‘ever-green’ organization,” as she put it.
That means, she said, “that there’s a process in place for ongoing evaluation [and] assessment of what we do and its effectiveness, and that the organization maintains the ability to adapt and change as circumstances change.”
Primakow also said she will be “supervising those MJF departments that fall under the outreach area of our new functional structure.” Those departments include the Jewish Community Relations Council, the Coalition for Jewish Learning, the Holocaust Education Resource Center, the Jewish Museum Milwaukee, the Israel Center, plus planning and allocations, and leadership development.
Planning and allocations were her responsibility in her earlier MJF position as planning director. “This has been an area I have loved,” she said, and it “stays with me.”
Primakow said she believes she and Rosenthal will make “a fantastic team” with strengths that “balance each other.”
“I love the planning and strategic visioning,” Primakow said. “I love the process of putting something new in place, of visioning and then seeing it through to implementation.”
Rosenthal, for her part, “is a very outgoing people-person who loves being out in the community and building those relationships. And so the pairing of the two of us will be ideal.”
Moreover, Primakow said that she is in “a unique position” to move into this new role precisely because of having been interim executive director since September 2011.
That role “gave me a hands-on feel for the details of what we do,” she said. “That will help me in my new role and provide some continuity for the organization as well.”
Jerry Benjamin, MJF president, praised Primakow’s work as interim executive director.
“When the Milwaukee Jewish Federation needed a strong, calming leader to step up and lead us during a very challenging time, Sheryl Primakow has worked tirelessly for the organization,” Benjamin said. “She has kept the annual campaign strong, led our staff and lay leadership through a time of Reimagining and transition, and in every way made the organization stronger than it was when she became our interim executive director.
“I am delighted that Sheryl has chosen to stay on as our chief operations officer. She will provide a welcome element of continuity and will be an enormous source of strength and wisdom as Hannah Rosenthal assumes her new role as CEO.”
For more information on Primakow’s background, see the September 2011 Chronicle.
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