The leaders and teams at both Leading Edge and Boardified are thrilled to announce that Leading Edge is acquiring Boardified. This move represents a major milestone in the Jewish nonprofit sector’s journey toward stronger leadership, governance, and organizational culture. 

“I couldn’t be more excited to bring Boardified into Leading Edge,” says Alicia Oberman, Founder and Chief Experience Officer of Boardified and soon-to-be Vice President, Leading Places to Serve at Leading Edge. “Their unwavering commitment to talent, culture, and leadership development makes it the right home for Boardified to build upon our work and what we have learned. We share a vision for excellence in all of our work and how we show up to all that we do, and it is inspiring to imagine what’s next.”

“We are so impressed by what Boardified has accomplished,” says Gali Cooks, President and CEO of Leading Edge. “They’ve supported boards in improving their performance, and really put the need for board leadership development on the map in our field. This is a big win for both sides and a case where 1 plus 1 will equal 3.”

Boards and professionals: the vital partnership. Both Leading Edge and Boardified have learned through their work that board leadership, professional leadership, and culture are critical for success—and inherently connected to each other. By uniting both organizations’ programs, expertise, and networks of participants and alumni, Leading Edge (with Boardified as a part of it) will drive stronger partnerships and more shared learning between board leaders and professional leaders throughout the Jewish nonprofit sector.

A perfect match. Leading Edge has been called “the central address for talent and culture in the Jewish nonprofit sector” by a third-party evaluator, and is best known for programs like the Employee Experience Survey and the CEO Onboarding Program, among other programs and resources. Since 2016, Leading Edge has surveyed more than 35,000 employees at more than 375 Jewish organizations, and its annual survey reports are widely consulted as must-read sources of information about the state of talent and culture in the field. Boardified has become the central platform in board development for Jewish communal organizations in North America. Best known for its signature program, the Board Member Institute (BMI), along with 360° board health assessments, the Technical Assistance Collaborative (TAC),  and other offerings for boards and the staff members who work with them, Boardified has supported more than 450 board members and 650 staff members at 375 institutions since 2018. Both organizations have grown in recent years in their teams and operations, and are committed to enhancing professional and volunteer leadership that is excellent, effective, equitable, diverse, and human-centered. 

“During Leading Edge's first seven years, we learned that creating leading places to work for professionals is as important as creating leading places to serve for board members,” says Scott Kaufman, Board Chair of Leading Edge. “A healthy professional-board partnership is mutually reinforcing. The pandemic really made that apparent, because the organizations that most effectively pivoted to the new realities were those where volunteer and professional leadership were highly aligned. That's one reason bringing in Boardified can accelerate our impact.”

Integrating and evolving the work. The Boardified team will become Leading Edge employees as soon as possible, allowing both teams to begin focusing on their work together. By July, the acquisition will be officially complete. At present, all programs currently operated by Boardified and Leading Edge will continue. Over the coming year and beyond, Leading Edge will explore the best ways to evolve and integrate existing Boardified and Leading Edge programming focused on board leadership and strengthening their partnership with professionals in the field.

Serving the whole field. Both Boardified and Leading Edge work to strengthen leadership across the full range of Jewish organizations in the sector—large and small, individual institutions and umbrella organizations, old and new, secular and religious, of every denomination and none, and representing a vast range of viewpoints and missions. With the integration of Boardified, Leading Edge will continue to grow its quality and capacity in providing a shared infrastructure of learning and practice around culture and leadership for the entire Jewish nonprofit field.

Questions? Reach out to us at info@leadingedge.org.