Welcoming Chris Johnston, Lumity’s New Board Chair
We are thrilled to announce that Accenture Managing Director Chris Johnston has become Lumity’s new board chair. A 12-year Lumity board member and former board treasurer, Chris is now accepting the chair reins from his colleague and friend, Steve Betts. Together, their leadership has been key to Lumity in so many ways and we are excited for this next phase of our work together.
To kick off his new role, we asked Chris to share his thoughts about Lumity and his vision for the board.
A few highlights from Chris’ role as Lumity board treasurer
Chris: “I’m really proud of our work to create more transparency and clarity in our financials. Lumity now prioritizes more deliberate investments, is much more targeted in our services in the market, and is active in how we plan and manage expenses. These are critical foundational elements that Lumity has established and help us to scale.”
Chris’ ideas for Lumity moving forward
“Lumity and our board have a lot of momentum, and I see my role as board chair as harnessing and reinforcing that momentum. That’s a little jargony, but it’s true. We as board members have a lot of different responsibilities, but, in the end, it comes back to keywords in our mission: ‘To provide teens and young adults from under-resourced communities with transformational experiences to prepare them for lifelong STEM careers.’
Our job as board members is to, indeed, provide. Given our relationships as Chicago STEM professionals, it is about providing the engagement of students with our companies and professional networks, as well as providing funding for those experiences. That is how we provide.
Another key phrase from our mission is transformational experiences. It really is our obligation and an opportunity to create interesting moments of engagement between Chicagoland young people and the STEM fields. This could be a tour of a facility, a Real World Challenge Project, or new experiences in math, science, and engineering. It’s our responsibility as a board to support Lumity’s staff in expanding and innovating our programs – and stretching our impact as well. And, of course, these transformational experience for teens and young adults is really the fun of what we do!”
