The process to fill the role of CEO for Food First NL came with many criteria and high expectations. The new person had to be someone with an understanding of the nuances of the non-profit sector, someone with experience in growing and maintaining a vibrant non-profit organization, someone with a passion for equity, and someone who has knowledge of our provincial food systems already in place. Not to mention, a leader.
After an extensive search, the right person for the job has arrived. Food First NL is giving a warm welcome to its new CEO, Josh Smee.
A familiar face in Newfoundland and Labrador, Josh is a community developer with experience in a wide range of nonprofits and social enterprises. He has worked on provincial projects for organizations such as the Community Sector Council NL and Choices for Youth and taken leadership roles on community initiatives such as the St. John’s Farmers’ Market Cooperative. With the Co-op, he spent six years as Board Chair, helping lead the planning and development that led to the new permanent Community Market in St. John's.
“I thrive on being surrounded by passionate, problem-solving, flexible thinkers, and our sector has that in spades,” says Josh about working with non-profit organizations.
“I'm also a big fan of the pace - community organizations can move very fast, but at the same time there is space to be intentional about carving out time for long-term, deliberative thinking.”
Though he has a broad range of non-profit experiences outside of Food First NL, this is also not Josh’s first involvement with the organization. While working with the Community Sector Council NL, he led a provincial pilot around measuring social return on investment, in which Food First NL took part. Later, he provided Collective Impact training that helped kick off one of our biggest projects, Everybody Eats, and maintained on-going engagement with the St. John's Food Policy Council, meaning many interactions with Food First NL over the years.
“I was always impressed with the team at Food First NL and their work. I also knew that Food First NL had recruited a very strong Board that was very well-suited to the kind of work they do.”
These experiences, combined with a long history of work in the policy space, made Josh the perfect fit for the role of CEO.
“I was always struck by the importance of food security as an issue, the widespread support for addressing it, and the way it intersects and is a part of so many of the biggest issues the province is facing, from poverty to reconciliation to the climate crisis,” says Josh.
“Once you put the importance of the issue and the quality of the team together, you end up with Food First NL on the top of a (very) short list of organizations I would love to lead, so it was pretty exciting to get the call.”
We were pretty excited to be making the call, too! With Josh on the team taking the lead, the organization looks forward to growing the role that Food First NL has at the grassroots level as educators, supporters, and animators. While he has many exciting plans to dive into, he is starting with the most important part of making change - the people.
“The first step for me will be to listen - to our team and to our many, many partners - about where we can add the most value to this incredible province and the people doing incredible work in it.”
