Welcome CEO Sharon Kennedy Vickers

Immediately Casey Helbling, founding father of Software program for Good, GBC, is proud to announce that Sharon Kennedy Vickers will lead the corporate into the long run as its new CEO. As board chair and Chief Know-how Officer, Casey will proceed to construct and assist the corporate he based in 2004, then reincorporated ten years later as one in every of Minnesota’s very first public profit firms.

As founding father of Minnesota’s nationally famend Code Change civic hackathon, co-founder of Techquity, and most lately CIO of the Metropolis of Saint Paul, Sharon is uniquely certified to guide Software program for Good into a brand new period of service to the better good. In their very own phrases, Casey and Sharon clarify how they received to this second.

CASEY. A couple of years in the past, I scribbled some five-year targets for Software program for Good on a sticky notice. The final aim on the record was crucial: “A brand new CEO.”

By that point, I’d been main Software program for Good for a decade and a half, studying on the fly the best way to run a worthwhile enterprise that places folks and planet first. However being a tech CEO wasn’t the work I ever needed for myself. What I like is the precise coding of software program, after I can put headphones on and construct one thing. I knew there was a restrict to how far the corporate might go along with me main it. I additionally knew that Software program for Good, as an organization, had barely scratched the floor of our potential. We’d want a visionary CEO to get us there.

SHARON. I began my profession as a developer too, however I don’t love coding the way in which Casey does. What’s at all times excited me about tech is the look on an individual’s face after I construct them a instrument that solves an issue for them. That’s what excites me — having the ability to see and really feel the way in which tech improves human lives. Way back, I spotted that my goal in life is to make use of the facility of know-how to assist folks dwell totally and freely. That’s why I began the Code Change hackathon, which is how Casey and I met.

CASEY. After the primary Code Change in 2016, Sharon requested me if Software program for Good may be considering supporting the hackathon, which was a good match for our mission and our values. Sharon and I’ve been buddies ever since. Software program for Good has sponsored Code Change yearly, and Sharon and I began up a enterprise fund to convey a number of the most promising Code Change civic tech to market.

In the meantime, Sharon was doing more and more modern and high-profile work within the Minnesota tech ecosystem. When Mayor Melvin Carter tapped her to be CIO for Saint Paul, he couldn’t have picked a greater individual to guide the town’s digital transformation. I used to be extremely impressed by Sharon’s management in Saint Paul, and I used to be proud Software program for Good might assist a few of it. However I couldn’t assist telling her, “Hey, for those who ever resolve to do one thing else, let me know.” What I actually needed to say was, “Oh my God, you’d be a unbelievable Software program for Good CEO.”

SHARON. I do not forget that dialog. On the time, I couldn’t think about doing something aside from main Saint Paul’s tech staff to assist Mayor Carter’s imaginative and prescient. As CIO, I constructed a communications and know-how staff that regarded like our group, and collectively we did superb issues with restricted assets to make Saint Paul work higher for everybody.

I’m eternally grateful for the work I received to guide on the Metropolis. I’d in all probability nonetheless be there if most cancers hadn’t modified my life dramatically. Between the autumn of 2020 and the top of 2021, I had a pulmonary embolism, gentle coronary heart assault, hysterectomy, a nephrectomy, and a double mastectomy. I’m comfortable to say I’m cancer-free right this moment and feeling nice. However that have taught me two necessary classes. First, the truth that I’m nonetheless alive means there’s extra work I’m referred to as to do on this world. And second, I need to try this work with as few constraints as doable.

CASEY. That’s after I reminded you that Software program for Good needed you!

SHARON. Your pleasure, speaking about the work — I spotted that main Software program for Good was precisely in alignment with my life’s goal. As a lot as I valued my work in Saint Paul, I used to be craving for the liberty to co-create liberating know-how wherever folks want it. That’s precisely what Software program for Good is constructed to do. Software program for Good exists to leverage software program to enhance the human situation — in civic tech, in group security, in human companies, in local weather motion. In all places tech can construct instruments folks have to dwell extra totally and freely.

CASEY. Having Sharon on the helm could have every kind of dramatic advantages for our staff — for the expansion she’ll allow, for the variety and excellence of the expertise she’ll entice to our staff, and for the tradition of belonging and curiosity she creates wherever she goes. Plus, Sharon’s nationwide community of deep relationships with visionaries nationwide will give us broader scope to unravel even larger issues.

SHARON. I couldn’t be extra excited concerning the work forward of us. For years, Casey and I’ve shared a imaginative and prescient of know-how as a method to liberate human potential. Now we’re placing that imaginative and prescient into observe aspect by aspect, with a staff of gifted and principled people who find themselves wanting to do extra good than ever earlier than. The long run for Software program for Good is considerable.

Join with Sharon

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