The role of ESA’s Board of Directors—composed of five internal and four external directors—is to represent all employee-owners by setting the strategic vision for the company, overseeing performance, and looking toward the future to ensure long-term growth and sustainability. As employee-owners, one of the many benefits of working for the firm is that all shareholders (i.e., ESA employees) are included in the process of nominating and voting for both internal staff and outside representatives to sit on ESA’s Board of Directors. This process occurs each spring, leading up to our annual Shareholders’ Meeting in early June, when new Board members are announced.
In 2021, two new internal employees joined ESA’s Board—congratulations to Ruta Thomas, our Southern California Regional Director, and Julie Sullivan, our Southeast Regional Director. In addition, we added two new outside directors to our Board: Tad Widby and Darrell Teat. It is exciting to add the depth and breadth of experience that these four individuals bring to ESA—especially in light of our next five-year strategic plan launching this year—but also to have more diversity represented at the Board level.
Welcome New Directors to ESA’s Board
In addition to annual Board elections, ESA appoints new Officers each year. Typically, new Officers would be introduced at the June Shareholders’ Meeting, but over the course of this year, we have gone through a rigorous exercise to refresh ESA’s Officer Program to bring more transparency to the nomination and review process and better articulate the roles and responsibilities of an ESA Officer. Holding the titles of Vice President or Senior Vice President, Officers assume additional accountability for ESA’s firmwide performance. They are directly responsible for leadership in driving the strategic growth and direction of the firm; creating value for ESA in the marketplace; delivering strong financial performance; embodying and fostering our core values; and nurturing the development of current and future employee-owners as part of an inclusive “One ESA” culture.
Over the past several months, we instituted the new nomination process, and we are pleased to share our new Officer appointments for 2021. Congratulations, Barbra Calantas, Hillary Gitelman, and Alisa Moore on your new positions as Vice Presidents at ESA, along with Julie Sullivan who was named a Senior Vice President.
Congratulations to Our New Officers
