Leadership Transition Ushers in a New Season
Members of CPA team celebrate Founding Executive Director Felipe Witchger in DC
I will be leaving CPA Co-op this month after 8 years as founding Executive Director, with excitement for the future of CPA and for me.
I’ve had the honor of leading CPA from our incubation to the $20 million in annual contracts, $1 million in revenue, profitable cooperative enterprise CPA is today.
What CPA is becoming is truly a pioneering business model with social purpose built in at many levels:
As congregation and school administrators, we synthesize practical insights for improved operations.
As a peer network of facility and finance directors, we build market access for businesses that are usually excluded: $13 million in contracts won by Black, Latino, and refugee entrepreneurs.
As property owners, we continue the transition to clean energy with 40 CPA organizations installing 5 MW of on-site solar. 150 more switching to wind power.
As CPA Co-op member-owners, we practice democracy in governance and ownership by allocating hundreds of thousands in surplus (profits) and building equity together.
As stewards of our long-term community power building strategy, we invested in partnerships to share our CPA model with new regions.
And this is just scratching the surface. Even more is underway as the CPA Co-op network expands.
Through this work, you have taught me so much about facility management, school operations, strategic procurement, energy markets, community wealth building, economic development -- and about leadership. I will be forever grateful for what I’ve learned working with and alongside you in building this incredible vehicle for social change.
I’m especially proud of the CPA Staff for developing an organizational culture that doesn’t just promise equity and inclusion, but seeks to deliver. The racial and gender equity work, salary and financial transparency, and distributed leadership we’ve invested in has been some of the hardest and most personally rewarding. It’s taught me to lead with greater self-awareness, empathy, and conviction. It’s also helped me to recognize my own strengths and blindspots with greater humility.
Now is the moment for me to make room for new leadership to bring fresh vision and voice to CPA and to guide the next phase of growth and impact.
With my full support and confidence, I’m so excited the CPA Board has chosen Amy Abbott and Boris Sigal to become Co-Executive Directors.
Amy Abbott has presided over an incredible season of growth in our DC Region since she joined the team in 2018. She’s grown our work with charter schools, added more than a dozen member-owners, led our security, janitorial, waste hauling, and supported development of our PPE purchasing, insurance, and food service programs. She’s been integral to hiring, onboarding and coaching new staff, while developing CPA’s internal culture to ensure democracy in the workplace.
Boris Sigal has been serving as our CFO since early 2018 and over the past 18 months has systematized and transformed our regional expansion efforts. Boris led our local partners in the Midwest and New England in signing 199 contracts through electricity and natural gas aggregations showing each region the promise of the CPA group experience.
Amy and Boris, along with CPA’s incredibly talented staff members, bring an unparalleled understanding of the CPA business model combined with a track record of results, a heart for the social mission, and a drive to take this work to the next level. I couldn’t be more excited about the nature of the ambition and tenacity for impact that they both bring to this work.
Finally, I’m so grateful to our CPA Board Members Troy, Ellen, Paul, Enje, Faida, Martin, Nate, Lorraine, Justin, and Kristin. You’ve guided, supported, and encouraged me and poured so much of yourselves into CPA this past year -- and over the past 10 years -- truly co-creating this beautiful collective. None of this would have been possible without your belief and trust in the CPA vision and promise.
What does this mean for me? I’m joining the inaugural cohort of the Fund for New Leadership that’s allowing me more time to support other cooperative entrepreneurs, fund managers, and impact investors. Together with Elizabeth Garlow, I’ll be co-directing the Francesco Collaborative which facilitates intensive workshops for investors, philanthropists, and change-makers. We’ve begun publishing Ownership Matters -- a newsletter helping you track the funds, organizations, and people on the move shaping the shared ownership movement.
Please don’t hesitate to reach out. I’d love to stay in touch and hope our paths cross again soon.
Sincerely,
Felipe