Big Brothers Big Sisters of London and Area has a new woman at its helm.
Janet Tufts was announced Wednesday as the agency's new executive director. Tufts replaces Jessie Rodger, who left the position at the end of last year to become the head of Anova.
“Janet is the leader we were looking for,” Big Brothers Big Sisters Board Chair Alison Fantillo said in a statement. “With over 20 years of experience and a solid reputation in the non-profit sector, we are confident that Janet will build on the expertise of her predecessors and the strength of our brand to help us achieve our goals, namely to serve more young people.”
Tufts returned to London after spending the last two years working overseas. Prior to that, she was the director of community impact at United Way Elgin Middlesex, where her responsibilities included allocating annual funds to Big Brothers Big Sisters. Tufts also previously served as the executive director of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame for seven years.
Big Brothers Big Sisters currently mentors more than 1,200 children and youth in the London area through both one-on-one and group mentoring programs. However, there are still roughly 125 boys and 45 girls on the mentoring waitlist, some of whom have been waiting years for a match.
“The waitlist needs to come down,” said Tufts. “But this is a tricky problem to address. Each match requires an unbelievably high level of monitoring and support so it’s not just a matter of recruiting more volunteers. We need to ensure we have the capacity to effectively manage our matches so the quality is not impacted in any way. Big Brothers Big Sisters is the world’s expert in mentoring and we are going to stay that way.”
