WES staff, World Refugee Day Walk, New York, 2019
2019-2024: A Change in Direction By the start of 2019, with the continued growth of the credential evaluation business (driven by demand in Canada) and with the accumulated financial reserves, the board of trustees were keen to build on WES’s experiments with other pathways to impact. Motivated by the overarching purpose of fostering global mobility, they considered how to best use the organisation’s now substantial resources to help individuals and communities most in need of support. Thinking beyond credential evaluation, the board committed to using WES’s surplus to support immigrants, refugees, and international students through a broader array of social impact initiatives. Over time, this decision led the organisation to develop a philanthropic arm; expand its programming, policy, and advocacy initiatives; rethink its investment strategies; and ultimately, incorporate addressing systemic barriers to economic inclusion for immigrants, refugees, and international students as a key pillar within its 2021-2025 strategic plan. To help expand its social impact activities, WES launched a philanthropic initiative and hired a new Senior Director, Monica Munn, to launch and run it. The initiative, named the WES Mariam Assefa Fund in honour of the organisation’s longtime leader, would become a key part of WES’s impact and approach to driving systems change.
“We were excited for the new world. And we were excited to wrestle with what that meant and how to get there.” Sidney Hargro, Chair, Board of Trustees A second critical step involved finding a new CEO as Assefa retired. Seeking a candidate who aligned with the board’s new ambition for WES and who would be capable of leading the organisation across a broader range of activities in pursuit of this mission – which now included a base of social impact initiatives alongside the core credential evaluation business – the board selected Esther Benjamin. A ‘tri-sector global leader’, Benjamin had built an expansive 25-year career working across the private, non-profit, and public sectors, including two stints in the White House under the Clinton and Obama administrations. Before joining WES, she led African operations for Laureate Education, the largest global higher education company. Benjamin also brought a deep understanding of the problems WES was trying to address, rooted in her own lived experience. Having come to the US from Sri Lanka when she was 13, Benjamin and her family left their homeland to seek safety, education, and other opportunities in a new country, much like many of the individuals whom WES serves. In the year prior to becoming the CEO, Benjamin had taken a year-long sabbatical to recharge and to focus on new opportunities to drive even greater impact.
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