A Mix of Leadership and Social Enterprise
Dr. A Gidget Hopf, president and CEO of Goodwill Industries International has been elected as the chair-person of the Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired of Greater Rochester, by its board of directors. Dr. Hopf was elected in the recently held meeting of executives and board leaders in Grand Rapids and he will be serving the association for one year. She has been serving the association for 26 years now as its CEO. During her tenure she has been able to transform the organization into a social enterprise that is nationally recognized.
Dr. Hopf was vice chair of the Goodwill Industries International Board. She has been a social leader and has been involved at local level to national level in the social welfare of visually impaired. She has been actively involved with different associations for the blind and in her capacity as senior position holder of many associations, has been contributing largely for the rehabilitation and uplift of the visually impaired. She has been on the board of many welfare associations for blind. She has also served for 10 years as president of a rural domestic violence program.
A highly qualified leader
Dr. Hopf has an undergraduate degree in speech pathology and audiology with masters in audiology and communication sciences. She also has a doctorate in leadership and organizational studies from George Washington University. She is well known speaker on the subject of leadership and she conducts courses and workshops on this subject. She also teaches leadership and not-for-profit governance in Roberts Wesleyan College. She is also associated with University of Rochester for conducting leadership workshops. She is actively involved in the leadership development program of Goodwill Industries by teaching transformational leadership. So she is contributing her might in many ways to create good leaders for tomorrow and also helping the visually impaired and blind people to lead a respectable life.
Transnational presence of Goodwill Industries
In spite of the fact that Dr. Hopf being married and having two daughters, she has devoted her life to a noble cause and proved that she is a true leader of a social enterprise. Goodwill industries is a community based enterprise having its base in US and Canada. It also has affiliates in 13 other countries. They are a network of 165 agencies that are community based. As per Forbes magazine, Goodwill industries are amongst the top 25 most inspiring companies of United States. Goodwill industries operate on a very novel and innovative idea which is self-sustaining. They fund training programs related to jobs, employment and placement services and many other community based social welfare plans. All this is funded by selling donated household items and clothes through a network of 2700 stores and also through their on-line portal, shopgoodwill.com. They also run many commercial programs for revenue generation, in association with private enterprise and govt. agencies and 82% of the company’s revenue goes directly into social welfare programs and services.