June 2024
President's Corner
Looking Back On An Amazing Year
As we wrap up Scottsdale Leadership’s fiscal year and my time serving as President of the Board of Directors, I wanted to reflect a bit as this year has been a year full of wins for Scottsdale Leadership!
As you know, we tried something new and kicked off Class 38 with an overnight retreat, and it was a huge success! We hosted seventeen alumni events ranging from social to philanthropic and educational opportunities. We stepped up our engagement with our Past President’s Club and our Advisory Council. These are incredibly valuable alumni and seeing their faces more often has been a pleasure!
Our corporate outreach efforts brought on six new sponsors and has a robust pipeline going forward to ensure the sustainability of our organization. Our newsletter is now sponsored and reaching more alumni than ever. Responding to the changing ways corporations give, we added an additional Board position and committee dedicated solely to grant writing; and we are already seeing results!
Michael Wills
If you attended our Spirit of Community Awards Luncheon, you saw a packed house and three more amazing community members honored. Our outreach and recruiting efforts have paid off as we had an amazing pool of applicants for our upcoming Class 39. Finally, we did all of this and finished in the black this year, budget-wise!
As alumni, you should take comfort in the fact that Scottsdale Leadership is going strong and we aren’t going to settle for the status quo. We will strive to make the organization better not only for all of us, but also our community. I would like to thank all of our board members and dedicated staff for all of their contributions throughout the year. It has been an honor to serve as President and I am confident that we left the organization a little stronger than we found it. As Joanna Peyton takes the reigns as President of the Board of Directors for 2024/2025, I can assure you Scottsdale Leadership is in great hands, and we are all in store for another great year ahead!
Blast from the Past
Josh Weiss, Class 18
Written by: Craig Miller, Class 7 and Dr. Frances Mills-Yerger, Class 16
People ask us all the time what makes the Scottsdale Leadership program so special. In response, we normally rattle off the great things this organization offers its alumni, but we could have just as easily mentioned the opportunity to meet people like Josh Weiss of Class 18 as reason enough to go through the program. He has this special presence that draws you in and makes you feel like you are in good hands. Josh jokingly calls himself a perception engineer. He and his team of 12 public relations professionals at his Scottsdale-based company, 10 to 1 PublicRelations, have the passion to grow positive awareness of their clients and protect them from reputational challenges and threats. We really enjoyed getting to know him better.
Josh Weiss
Class 18
Congratulations
Karen Armknecht
Class 22 !
Karen was just awarded the
Victoria Foundation's
Advocate for Education Award.
This award celebrates her dedication and achievements in advancing educational outcomes through service, research and publications.
Way to Lead, Karen!
Way To Go
David Twigger
Class 36 !
David and his company, Vermilion Events, have been our event producer for the Spirit of Community Awards Luncheon for many years. We are happy to hear about their success.
Just don't forget about us, David!
Help to Inspire
Leadership Development
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