civic-leadership
(4)
Edwin Eisendrath Keeps Choosing the Difficult Room
Across four decades, one Chicagoan has moved from classrooms to council chambers, public housing, patents, newspapers and radio. The job titles change. The recurring assignment is to enter a complicated institution and make it useful again.
Brian Butler Built a Second Career by Listening First
After 22 years in the Army, a White House policy post and a bruising civilian transition, Brian Butler started over at home. He built Vistra by carrying one military habit into business: listen before you lead.
The Boston Foundation Built a $2.6 Billion Machine for Giving - Then Pointed It at Boston’s Hardest Problems
It looks after charitable money, but its real product is judgment: where Boston’s needs are sharpest, which local groups can respond, and how grants, research and policy can work together. In fiscal 2025, that judgment helped move $255 million through 12,472 grants.
John T. Ehrbar
John T. Ehrbar is a career YMCA leader who, starting January 26, 2026, takes the helm as President and CEO of the YMCA of Silicon Valley after six years running YMCA Buffalo Niagara. He has spent over two decades inside the Y movement, climbing from a high school Leaders Club kid in northeast Ohio to running an 80-million-dollar nonprofit serving 2,300 staff across the Bay Area.