Just before COVID hit the U.S., the Leap Ambassadors Community published guidance on succession planning for high-performing CEOs and got great feedback on it from social-sector CEOs starting to think about passing the baton to the next generation of leaders. Today, we’d like to augment those insights with those of a Leap Ambassador who was set up for success through a leadership-succession process that deserves to be held up for our entire sector to see.

The Leap Ambassador is Yolanda Coentro, who in 2016 became the President and CEO of the Institute for Nonprofit Practice (INP), a Boston-based nonprofit that equips promising nonprofit leaders with the skills, confidence, and resources they need to make their organizations, effective, innovative, and sustainable. Yolanda was named one of The NonProfit Times’s top 50 most powerful and influential leaders, one of The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s “15 More People Changing the Nonprofit World,” and Barr Foundation Fellow. Perhaps most impressive, she transitioned into the CEO role while she was the primary caregiver and medical advocate for two parents with cancer and raising two young children.

Read about Yolanda's story in the September 2021 Leap Update from Mario Morino and Lowell Weiss.