Better Late Than Never
On December 30, 2024, Freedom House, the highly regarded pro-democracy organization,1 announced that its incoming CEO, Suzanne Nossel (former CEO of PEN America), would not be taking on the role after all. It also stated that the two long-serving board co-chairs who had announced Nossel’s hiring back in October would be moving to emeritus status. (Press release here.)
I don’t know firsthand what went on (which, if you know me, you know has never stopped me from coming to a conclusion), but I will speculate wildly in order to highlight a seemingly positive example of a functioning board fulfilling its main responsibility, that is, hiring and overseeing the organization’s CEO. Too often the board misinterprets or messes up this basic function. When the board does its job, though, it strengthens the organization and benefits those of us its mission serves.
Back in September, I wrote about the chaos and division at PEN America, the premier U.S. free speech organization. The cascading leadership failures, shared equally by the then-CEO and her board, rested on accusations that PEN America advocated for free speech as long as that speech didn’t support Palestinian rights. Months of questions and protests both internally and externally roiled PEN America, but PEN’s board failed to step in and put the organization first over the personal beliefs of those in leadership roles.
(Please understand that I don’t have personal animosity toward Suzanne Nossel. But I do have lots of frustration over this too-common organizational dysfunction. Well-intentioned people can show poor leadership, and the results are too impactful on staff and other stakeholders for an organization as essential as PEN America. That’s why boards exist, to balance the power of the CEO. Dysfunction at the organizational level is too often reflected in the board, so there is no accountability and no change. That model ensures organizational failure (at once or at last), and the stakes are just too high when we rely so heavily on non-profits to provide rights advocacy, food, shelter, etc. in our precarious, safety-net-less America.)
The problems at PEN America went beyond increasing ideological conflict. Longstanding complaints about management and leadership failures got louder and resulted in a widening employee exodus (at all levels), with the board seeming to take no interest in the functioning of the organization and the concerns of its staff. Maybe the board considered that these concerns were unfounded or immaterial in light of PEN’s positive public reputation and influence. Maybe the board did not understand its role in overseeing the CEO. Either way, the organization suffered as more and more staff left and those who remained worked under an allegedly autocratic leadership style that almost parodically mirror-imaged the organization’s rights-based mission. (One note: Nossel’s management style tracks many a male CEO’s, and yet her reputation suffers for it – not that her rumored behavior is excusable, just that it would be far more acceptable to others if she were a man. )
Despite these well-known issues, on October 31, 2024, Freedom House announced, via its then board co-chairs, the appointment of Nossel to lead the organization “after a nationwide search,” and that she was slated to begin the new role on January 7, 2025. (Here.) News coverage that PEN’s CEO was leaving after a tumultuous year insinuated that she had been pushed out. (Here and here.) From what I know, the announced hiring decision gave rise to substantial concerns within Freedom House based on Nossel’s reputation for autocratic leadership.
Now we come to the late December announcement, a week before she was to begin her new role, which informed us that Nossel had a change of heart: “We understand that, as a new chapter takes shape in Washington, the role is no longer an ideal match for her goals. We respect her decision and look forward to finding other ways to work together.” Huh? (I don’t even understand what they intended this to mean.) The press release also named a new board chair, offering no reason for the board leadership change.
Here’s where I’ll make some deductions. Back in October I’d heard that the then co-chairs of Freedom House, Jane Harman and Wendell Wilkie, offered Nossel the job without engaging in basic protocols for an executive search (namely, seeking input from executive staff and board). Anyone who has been involved in the search for a new CEO knows the grinding, tedious, critical task of including stakeholders in the hiring process —otherwise dooming even the most qualified candidate to resentment and suspicion on their first day on the job. Without engaging in a neutral, inclusive process, the imposed decision signaled that Nossel had evaded accountability for the leadership failures at PEN America and was now benefitting from the lack of transparency at her new board. Staff, and some board members, rebelled. They refused to accept a weak leader just when the democracy organization is poised to be a critical bulwark against an incoming U.S. oligarchy.
I have tried to find out a bit about how this thing went down, but am coming up empty-handed (tips welcome!), which in itself is strange. Non-profit people talk. But, on the surface it seems like the Freedom House board ultimately decided to act in the way I wish other boards would. The number one function of the board, in case I haven’t hammered this home enough, is to hire and oversee the CEO of an organization. And it appears that the Freedom House board took that role seriously (eventually). It took the risk of publicly retreating from a bad decision, in a situation that could encounter blowback from Nossel’s supporters and potential donors, not to mention the board’s own (now former) co-chairs. The full board showed its leadership by refusing to go along with a failure of leadership. It would have been easier, in the short-term, to simply let Nossel take the reins and hope for the best.
Applause is appropriate here. It’s confoundingly rare to see nonprofit leaders (or anyone, really) standing up for what’s right, let alone doing so in a thankless situation that could piss off well-regarded figures and their own donors. I’ll take this as a welcome sign that good leaders are out there, and that, more importantly, it’s never too late to do the right thing.
According to its website, “Freedom House is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to create a world where all are free. We inform the world about threats to freedom, mobilize global action, and support democracy’s defenders.”