Stephanie Urchick chosen 2024–25 RI president
Stephanie Urchick of RC McMurray, Pennsylvania, USA, has been chosen by the Nominating Committee as RI president for 2024–25. She will be the second woman RI president. She will be declared president-nominee on Oct 1, if no challenging candidates come forward.
With the world facing incredible challenges, including the Covid-19 pandemic, disasters driven by climate change and conflict in many regions, Urchick says Rotary’s leaders can offer a vision and a plan for overcoming these challenges.
“Measures taken by Rotary leadership to survive and end critical challenges often make our organisation stronger and more resilient for future events. This kind of essential leadership also creates new levels of cooperation, even among rivals, when Rotarians pull together as people of action to serve and solve a crisis,” she says. Making regionalisation a priority is crucial, says Urchick. “Because Rotary operates in more than 200 countries and regions, it is vital to recognise that the organisation has the potential to become more efficient and effective by understanding and reacting to how regional differences affect the way Rotarians work to address providing service, promoting integrity, and advancing world understanding, goodwill and peace.”
Urchick is partner and chief operating officer of Doctors at Work LLC, a consulting and training company. She holds a doctorate in leadership studies from Indiana University, Pennsylvania. She is active on numerous community boards and committees, and has been honoured by organisations including Zonta International and the Sons of the American Revolution.
A Rotarian since 1991, Urchick has travelled to Vietnam to help build a primary school and to the Dominican Republic to install water filters. She studies several Slavic languages, has mentored new Rotarians in Ukraine, and coordinated a Rotary Foundation grant project in Poland.
She has served Rotary in many roles, including as a director, The Rotary Foundation trustee and chair of the RI Strategic Planning Committee and the TRF’s Centennial Celebration Committee. She currently serves on the Election Review and Operations Review Committees. She is a Major Donor and a member of the Bequest Society.
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