Looking to the Future On 15 October 2024, WES celebrated its 50th anniversary with past and present partners, staff, and board members in New York City. It was an opportunity to honour WES’s history of success as the leading credential evaluation provider in North America, its accomplishments in facilitating economic inclusion for immigrants, refugees, and international students, and the individuals who made these accomplishments possible. Yet those assembled for the evening were aware of the challenges that lay ahead. Some of these challenges were operational, as WES grappled with unexpectedly high and varied application volumes that would stretch the organisation’s capacity. This included more complex educational files as well as more Canadian immigration files from people who were already in the country, such as former international students, temporary foreign workers, and others seeking a path to permanent residency. To compound matters, a restructuring of the credential evaluation team and the ongoing digital transformation had strained organisational capacity. Other challenges were organisational. While WES had made progress toward integrating its systems change work with its core business, the leadership team continued to grapple with critical questions about how to maximise WES’s impact and how to best structure the organisation to deliver this impact. They recognised that the credential evaluation business and the systems change work were distinct and sometimes in tension. At the same time, they also increasingly saw the power in having the two divisions work together to tackle economic inclusion for immigrants, refugees, and international students, albeit with different tools. Still other challenges extended beyond the bounds of the organisation, including the increasingly politicised context in which WES operated. In the autumn of 2024, the US was in the final weeks of a heated presidential election, and the future of Canada’s longstanding Prime Minister, a strong supporter of immigration, was in doubt. These dynamics created considerable uncertainty about political support for immigrants, making WES’s work both more critical and more complex.
After the 50th anniversary event concluded, Benjamin and the entire leadership team sought to capture the energy of the evening and this landmark year. Mindful of the operational, organisational, and political uncertainties facing WES, they were fuelled by a sense of urgency and driven to move forward with WES’s work of fostering global mobility for immigrants, refugees, and international students.
WES 50th Anniversary Staff Retreat, Philadelphia, 2024
In the weeks following the 50th anniversary event, the WES Board would go on to approve a new ten-year strategy with the ambitious goal of helping enable and accelerate equitable access to good work for immigrants. Created over the course of 2024, in close conversation with WES staff and partners, this strategy aimed to help WES maximise its impact in the long term and stay ahead of the curve amidst a rapidly changing external landscape with significant headwinds for serving immigrants, refugees, and international students. “The decision to develop a ten-year strategy was an important decision for us. We have a powerful, broad mission and an ambitious vision. There is so much work to be done, and as an organisation, we want to respond to this demand for change. Our ten-year strategy gives the focus to invest in diversifying our revenue sources while helping prioritise our impact driven initiatives.” Megan Blackburn, Senior Director, Strategy and Planning The new strategy will require yet another significant organisational transformation, as WES continues to build upon its legacy and works to help build inclusive economies that enable immigrants to thrive.
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