New Kittleman & Associates Consultants in Boston and Chicago

Three new Consultants have joined Kittleman & Associates in our Boston and Chicago offices. They will lead executive leadership searches for our nonprofit client organizations and play an active role in new business development. https://www.chicagobusiness.com/people-on-the-move

Jeff Katz, Principal, Boston

Jeff is a nationally recognized child welfare expert and nonprofit leader with over 35 years of experience with nonprofits throughout New England, the US, and internationally. He has been an executive search consultant for a variety of organizations, ranging from those serving people with developmental disabilities to schools serving impoverished families in Central America. He has served for more than 14 years as an Executive Director, first at CODE crisis hotline and then at Adoption Rhode Island, and 20 years as a consultant in the nonprofit community, including serving many times as an interim Executive Director. Jeff was a member of the Obama for President Child Policy team and played a role in passing the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997. His op-ed pieces have been published in the Washington Post, Boston Globe, and Christian Science Monitor. He also served as a child welfare expert at the Neiman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University and a Fellow at the Kennedy School, where he developed the Listening to Parents Project, an influential national study of how prospective adoptive parents are treated by public child welfare agencies. As a Consultant at Kittleman & Associates, Jeff has led executive searches including for the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

Heather Merriam, Principal, Boston

Heather is an expert in leadership management, consulting and recruiting with over 20 years of experience in management and administration of nonprofits of all sizes and missions, from grassroots to multimillion-dollar budget organizations. The thread throughout her career has been leadership consulting and helping organizations become stronger in order to more effectively achieve their mission. Passionate about leadership, Heather believes that there are many brilliant leaders waiting to be matched with their dream position. As a Principal with a boutique search firm in the San Francisco Bay Area, she conducted executive level searches including CFO, COO, Development Director, and Human Resources Director. Key to her success was the ability to work in a consultative capacity with boards of directors and organization leaders to define leadership requirements and cultivate an “A” list of candidates. Previously, Heather was an Executive Director of an internationally focused nonprofit and worked as an advisor with two nonprofit federations, one national and one international, to provide technical assistance and resources to their affiliates. Since joining Kittleman & Associates, Heather has led executive searches including for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and is currently working on a search for the Animal Legal Defense Fund.

Susan (Suzy) Cowen, Senior Principal, Chicago

Suzy has over 25 years of executive leadership experience in the nonprofit sector and a passion for developing strong organizational cultures, succession planning, change management and talent acquisition. She also has a deep background in board recruitment, governance design and stewardship. In her role as President and CEO at Kenneth Young Center, Suzy guided the Board and staff through an extensive team building and strategic planning process and overhauled financial and fundraising strategies. As the Executive Director of Family Service of Glencoe, she led the organization into their Centennial year, and as President and CEO of the Illinois Collaboration on Youth, she set forth the vision for a consolidation in statewide associations for children and youth, impacting the lives of thousands of children, youth and their families. Suzy’s most recent professional endeavors took her to California where she led an acquisition and turn around for the Gateway Foundation in the behavioral health arena. She also served in a leadership role with a hospital system tasked with developing a state of the art, evidence based center of excellence for behavioral healthcare for children and adolescents, after receiving an unprecedented $105 million gift. These efforts have broadened her experience in health care to include substance use disorder treatment and operational leadership within broader health systems. As a Consultant at Kittleman & Associates, she is currently leading executive searches including for EveryChild and the Foundation for Pennsylvania Watersheds.