In March 2022, we announced an expansion of Metro Caring’s leadership team to a co-leadership model. At the start of our new fiscal year in April, Erik Hicks and Teva Sienicki became our first co-CEOs: Erik as our CEO-Integrator and Teva as our CEO-Visionary. In this Q&A, read about why our two leaders are excited about their new roles, how this model will advance our mission, and what snacks they’ll always agree on.
To learn more about co-leadership models, download our literature review of resources that helped us make the switch.
What energizes you most about your new role?
Teva: I can fully embrace the parts of the work that I love the most. My top three strengths, according to the StrengthsFinder assessment, are strategic, futuristic, and learner. I always want to learn and grow and expand thinking and practice. I love making divergent connections. I often go down an internet rabbit hole, with 47 tabs open, to connect and find new ideas. Now I can spend more time learning about, thinking about, and reading about what is cutting edge. I can take more time to think deeply about how to embed equity in all different spaces and layers of what we do. I’m also really excited to be working alongside Erik. I like that we’re now peers on purpose. I think we’re really complementary, and we have a good rapport with each other. I enjoy his brain and his perspective and simply spending time with him. I’m also excited that I don’t have to worry about operations as much anymore!
Erik: As a kid and throughout my professional career, I’ve always been able to see the big picture and envision the steps we need to take to achieve it. I also believe it’s important everyone feels valued and that they all have the opportunity to be their best every day. As a CEO, I get to lead an organization and infuse those values into our operations and work. I also enjoy working with Teva because our skills are very compatible, with her thinking about the vision or the dream and me setting the steps needed for us to achieve it. From a personal aspect, while there are several leaders within the nonprofit sector that are BIPOC, the fact isn’t lost on me that I am a Black man in this space. One who grew up in this community. As the CEO-Integrator I will continue to bring this into every space I step in. It’s important to me to demonstrate how a trail can be blazed by all of us.
How do you see Metro Caring’s values reflected in the co-leadership model?
Erik: Honestly, I see all of them. But I’ll focus on a few. “Own It.” We’re doing what we’re good at. Being able to execute what we’re good at will help us go to scale and be more impactful in our work. “Pursue Equity.” A queer woman and a person who identifies as a Black man are leading the organization. The majority of our leadership team is BIPOC as well. That’s what we strive for: to be and execute the change we want to see in the world. I also think it reflects our “Think Outside the Box” value because this model is not very common in the nonprofit sector.
Teva: For me, I think about our value “Rise Together.” It’s about sharing leadership and sharing power in a way that leverages all of the diverse strengths in our community. We’re modeling that at the CEO level, and it can create space for lots of different ways to think and contribute to our mission. The days of thinking that one singular hero at the top leads it all are over. First, that’s been shown not to be true. There’s always been people at their wings even if they haven’t received credit. And second, it’s less effective as a leadership model. Our heroes had all these people behind them. The more we can leverage our collective strengths, the better.
How does this model build capacity for the organization?
Teva: We have a lot of bold goals and ideas in our strategic plan. Erik and I trust each other enough that we can each take halves. In our site development project, for example, Erik can be more aggressive in the capital campaign, while I can think about the architecture and design features. We also want to be sharing our work and lead in the sector. Now, as CEO-Visionary, I actually have time to write op-eds and go to speaking engagements.
Erik: Living out our mission is proving to be a difficult task. The immediate needs of our community are so drastic and dire. Allowing me to focus more closely on the uptick of folks coming to us and identifying what resources we need helps us advance our mission to work with our community to meet their immediate needs and ending hunger at its root. We focused on immediate needs for so long, but this model allows us to be a sector leader and step outside our operations bubble to think big and bold. It allows us to double our fundraising and hopefully acquire new funding by achieving national notoriety.
What’s one thing your co-CEO has taught you over the years?
Erik: To be a little more aggressive with funders. I came from an individual donor background, and I was taught that the donor is always right. One thing I’ve learned is that it’s okay to ask questions to funders because we are partners in this work. Teva helped me think about these relationships as more of a two-way street.
Teva: A lot of what I’ve learned from Erik is softer skills. He has a higher emotional intelligence quotient than I do, and he helps me be more skilled with relationships. I used to think I had to know it and be competent and be in charge, some of which I think comes from being a woman in leadership. I had to be tough to get where I got. But it’s not serving anybody now, and it’s not who I am. Erik’s helped me be more real and be more approachable. He’s helped me with my communication too. I tend to be at 40,000 feet a lot and sometimes I blurt out a thing before we’ve talked about how we’d get there. Erik helps me to slow up and talk it through with him or another thought partner and think about how to communicate an idea more clearly.
What’s one thing you will always agree on?
Erik: That Teva should only have one to one-and-a-half beers at a meeting.
Teva: We both really agree on Trader Joe’s snacks being delicious.
Erik: We also like sparkling water.
Teva: He prefers tea, I prefer coffee, but we both like whiskey.
Erik: We both love Metro Caring. We love the people, the mission, the vision.
Teva: And we’re excited and hopeful for what we can do together.
