St Kilda Mums will farewell founding committee member and CEO Jessica Macpherson OAM next month.
Jessie has resigned as CEO and will be stepping down, twelve years after starting the organisation in the photocopier room at her local maternal health centre.
St Kilda Mums Board Chair Deidre Mackechnie said Jessie’s tenacity, passion and energy are behind the extraordinary growth and impact of St Kilda Mums, Geelong Mums and Eureka Mums, and that she will be greatly missed.
“Jessie has grown the organisation from a simple idea in 2009 to what it is today: a much-loved organisation with thousands of volunteers supporting more than 20,000 babies and children each year across Victoria,” she said.
Under Jessie’s leadership St Kilda Mums is now powered by a small staff team and more than 3,000 volunteers, and has warehouses in Clayton, Geelong and Ballarat.
Across 12 years it has supported more than 138,814 babies and children and saved more than 342,870 prams, cots and other essential items from landfill.
Jessie has also inspired and personally supported many other like-minded organisations across Australia and she has received several awards for her community work, including an Order of Australia Medal in 2019. She was inducted into the Victorian Honour Roll of Women in 2017 and was an award winner in the Pro Bono Australia Impact 25 last year.
“We are extremely grateful to Jessie for her incredible leadership across 12 years, the past seven as CEO, but understand that the time is right for Jessie to take on her next challenge,” Deidre said.
Jessie said it had been an honour to lead the organisation as founder, volunteer and CEO.
“Twelve years ago when St Kilda Mums began, three things struck me: waste, need and opportunity. From our first working bee to the network of sister organisations across Australia and the hundreds of thousands of babies and children supported in that time, the vision of a kinder fairer future has driven me,” Jessie said.
“It’s been an absolute honour to work with such a community of amazing staff, volunteers, donors and supporters and I am so proud to have made these achievements with them.
“From the beginning this organisation has been driven by volunteers, as it was volunteers in Geelong and Ballarat who drove the creation of Geelong Mums and Eureka Mums. Some 80 percent of our staff today joined us first as volunteers, and they like many others, secured their jobs, through the skills and experiences they learnt through volunteering.”
Jessie is leaving St Kilda Mums to follow the seed of another idea to help people get well paid, meaningful and flexible jobs in technology. It is the same technology that drove St Kilda Mums’ rapid growth and she plans to use it to help other organisations with their digital transformations.
“St Kilda Mums will always hold a special place for me. I look forward to seeing the organisation continue to grow and strive for a future where we share more, waste less and care for every child.”
Jessie’s last day as CEO will be Wednesday 31 March 2021. The St Kilda Mums Inc. Board will now turn its attention to working through a comprehensive recruitment process for its new CEO and will provide an update in due course.
Read more about Jessica here:
https://www.stkildamums.org/pages/our-story
https://www.stkildamums.org/blogs/news/how-i-lead-jessica-macpherson-st-kilda-mums