JewishCare CEO resigns
"In his four years as CEO of JewishCare, Gary has presided over a period of immense change and challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic," says JewishCare president Jason Sandler.
JewishCare CEO Gary Groves has announced his resignation to take up a new role within the mental health NGO sector, with Michael Gordon appointed into the role as interim CEO while the board begins its search for a replacement.
Groves, who took over from Clare Vernon, will finish up with JewishCare on May 10.
“In his four years as CEO of JewishCare, Gary has presided over a period of immense change and challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic,” said JewishCare president Jason Sandler. “Under Gary’s leadership, JewishCare modernised its workforce, improved the quality of care, introduced new mental health initiatives and underwent a strategic workforce restructure. We are grateful to Gary for his strong leadership and commitment to facing these challenges and implementing much needed change.
“As JewishCare embarks on the next phase of its development, the time is right to initiate a process of leadership transition.”
At the end of last year JewishCare cut up to 10 staff members after the organisation reported losses of $877,000 and $2.48 million in 2021-22 and 2022-23 respectively.
At the time Groves told The AJN the decisions – which followed an “extensive review” – were “extremely difficult” but necessary, despite taking place during a period of heightened anxiety for the community.
“It is necessary to enact decisions for the good of JewishCare and its constituents without delay,” he said in December.
“These redundancies were made having regard to the ongoing support needs of JewishCare’s clients and the Jewish community more broadly, relative to the existing staff levels within the organisation.
“No front-line staff are affected by these redundancies and because we were previously overstaffed, we anticipate no impact on service levels or quality for our clients even if we see increased demand for services.”
The redundancies came as a shock, particularly as staff had previously been told there would be no job cuts.
“During the realignment many months ago, this was correct,” Groves confirmed.
“Redundancies are always the last option and, until we conducted the recent review, we had no intention of making any cuts.”
Sandler thanked Groves for his “leadership, dedication and unwavering commitment to JewishCare” during his tenure and wished him well in his next chapter.
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