Leaders Engaged and Activated to Drive System-wide Change (LEADS) is expanding its fellowship program to the North Shore to work with leaders from Lynn, Salem, Peabody and Beverly.
LEADS is an economic and leadership development program that works to change communities by investing in their civic infrastructure.
The 10-month fellowship is designed and delivered by faculty and staff from Harvard Business School (HBS) as a platform to advance and connect diverse leaders to make positive changes at the local and regional level.
Started in Lawrence in 2018, the fellowship program then expanded through the Merrimack Valley in Lowell and Haverhill and since graduated nearly 100 leaders.
Bob Rivers, chair and chief executive officer (CEO) of Eastern Bank, said that Eastern Bank fully understands, and is committed to, the opportunity that LEADS will provide for the local organizations and business community.
“As a mechanism to also invest in a more diverse leadership ecosystem, I am personally thrilled by what LEADS could mean for the North Shore,” Rivers said.
LEADS has also hired Fredy Hincapie from the Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee Co. as a program coordinator.
Hincapie is a first generation Colombian American who has lived in Lynn for the last 20 years, bringing an additional lens of local expertise to the organization.
More than $25 million in public and private investment has been generated by the project teams through LEADS, according to Boston-based venture capitalist, HBS professor and LEADS board chair and co-founder Jeff Bussgang.
“This is what community-wide resilience looks like when you invest in individuals and connect them with resources. It is a recipe for both equity and innovation,” Bussgang said.
Bussgang also acknowledged the connection and leadership between LEADS fellows during the Columbia Gas Crisis in Lawrence and the COVID-19 pandemic.
The expansion into the North Shore was based on strategic working relationships with Eastern Bank, Congressman Seth Moulton, Essex County Community Foundation and others who had a working knowledge of the impact of LEADS in the Merrimack Valley and were eager to leverage the programming to help advance leaders, organizations, and coalitions in the North Shore, LEADS said.
Beth Francis, CEO of the Essex County Community Foundation (ECCF), said that as a funder who cares deeply about the 34 cities and towns in Essex County, ECCF and its donors deploy charitable resources to address systemic challenges in the communities.
“To accomplish real change requires cross-sector leaders, who have strong working relationships, to work collaboratively toward community goals,” said Francis. “We’ve seen LEADS in action during the Merrimack Valley gas-explosion response efforts and understand the value LEADS fellows can bring to other parts of the county. It’s why ECCF is investing in the expansion to the North Shore. We hope to strengthen and connect the social capital we are privileged to have in our region.”
Fellows will be nominated and selected by area partners and a North Shore-based selection committee during the winter and spring of 2022, with the first of two cohorts scheduled to start in the fall of 2022, and the second cohort in 2023.
The 10-month fellowship includes programming on the North Shore, in Boston and at Harvard Business School with the creation of actionable project teams working on priority issues at the local and regional level.
Graduates of the fellowship also get access to the LEADS network, which works across organizations and regions to scale their impact.
Pam Hallagan, LEADS co-founder and executive director, said they could not be more excited to be working in collaboration with partners on the North Shore to leverage the LEADS programming to make a real and lasting impact there.
“Often the resources available to larger markets and corporate entities like the globally recognized Harvard Business School executive education programs are not accessible to gateway cities like Lynn, Salem, Peabody and Beverly and the leaders in those communities,” Hallagan said. “But we know these interventions work and have transformational impact for the individuals involved, the organizations and institutions they run, and the communities they serve.”
North Shore LEADS is a collaboration with ECCF. Other partners include Amplify LatinX, Citizens Inn, Creative Collective, Eastern Bank, Enterprise Center at Salem Street, Essex County Community Organization (ECCO), Latino Support Network, Lynn Business Partnership, Lynn Housing Authority & Neighborhood Development, New Lynn Coalition, North Shore Community College, North Shore Chamber, North Shore Alliance, Salem Partnership, and The United Way of Mass Bay & Merrimack Valley.
To learn more about LEADS and the partners in the North Shore, visit www.LEADSMA.org.
