Jewish Family Service Appoints Linda Foster as President and CEO
Linda P. Foster was selected as Jewish Family Service of Colorado’s (JFS) new president and CEO and will join the agency on November 28, 2018. JFS’s Board Search Committee conducted a wide-ranging national search for the agency’s new leader and came to a unanimous choice, which was ratified by the full JFS Board of Directors today.
Linda is relocating to Denver from the Chicago area, where she served as Head of School at Solomon Schechter Day School for the past nine years. She has deep Colorado connections and owns a home in Steamboat.
Linda has an impressive background as a leader of both nonprofit and for-profit organizations and business units in a variety of industries, ensuring mission fulfillment and sound financial viability.She has extensive organizational, operational, and management experience, and has successfully led capital campaigns, endowment growth, and donor cultivation and stewardship efforts. She brings the vision, passion, and experience to take JFS to new heights of service to the Denver and Boulder community.
Prior to her tenure at the Solomon Schechter Day School, Linda was the owner of RCLA, a successful residential property development company in Highland Park, Illinois. Before launching her own company, she was president of TJW Residential, a privately held commercial real estate finance company, also in Highland Park. Linda earned a BA degree from Wellesley College and has participated in the Kellogg School of Management Center for Non-Profit Management at Northwestern University.
“Linda is both an accomplished leader and relationship builder with a longstanding and deep devotion to the values that we at JFS hold dear,” says Laura Michaels, Search Committee chair. “In getting to know Linda, it became clear to the committee that we found a wonderful match for the organization. We are thrilled to welcome her to our community and are confident that our partners, donors, and constituents will find her to be a uniquely capable and dedicated CEO. We believe she is just the right person at the right time to move JFS forward.”
Linda is passionate about Jewish Family Service and its mission. “I am truly honored and humbled to lead this incredible and impactful organization and to have the opportunity to work with all the talented people invested in it,” she says. “JFS’s mission and core values bring together so much of what is important to me, both personally and professionally. I look forward to meeting JFS’s supporters, volunteers, and partners to build and strengthen relationships and the agency’s impact in the greater Denver community.”
Linda is married to Bill and they have three grown children: Jeremy, 36, who has Down Syndrome; Rachel, 34, a public health dentist who is married to Bobby and lives in Vermont with their two children, Maddie and Olivia; and Daniel, 31, who is married to Jordan and lives in Skokie, Illinois. Daniel was one of the first openly LGBTQ candidates to run for the Cook County Board of Commissioners.
