In college. I earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and spent a good bit of my early career in the public sector working for politicians. This inevitably involved campaigning and elections and since then, I’ve watched with great interest most local, state, and federal elections. My wife teases me on Election Night as I sit riveted to the TV, watching the results roll in.

I’m as eager now to learn who has been elected to the IPI Board of Directors. While the responsibility of voting falls to someone else in my organization, I did take keen interest in the slate of candidates, reading their statements and considering how they’d impact IPI. So much talent steps forward each IPI election cycle and the voters do a great job of advancing people well-suited to serve as board members. It takes courage, thought, and commitment to run, you must allow your experience to be scrutinized, and you have to accept the chance that you will not earn enough votes. I applaud everyone willing to throw their hat in the ring and encourage more to do so. Without a diverse group of quality candidates, the board of IPI cannot effectively fulfill its mission and foster the organization’s growth.

Another important election will occur once the new board is in place and that will be for two key IPI officer positions: the board chair-elect and the treasurer. With the chairman of the board and immediate past chair, these positions comprise the organization’s executive committee and are selected by the IPI board. As I see it, the executive committee’s role is to provide the central board leadership and interface with the IPI executive director to ensure that the organization stays on track, exploits new opportunities, and maximizes the impact of the entire board and volunteer committees. These duties are shared among the executive committee, so the composition of the committee and its chemistry matter greatly. The executive committee is often called upon to handle sensitive issues and consider matters prior to the full board’s deliberation. There must be a willingness among the committee to disagree, challenge one another and to offer new, creative thinking to the conversation. This group must be bold, visionary, thoughtful, selfless, and singularly focused on what is in IPI’s best interest.

Selecting the next chairman of the board and treasurer is of critical importance to IPI and I wish the candidates who will step forward all the best. Unfortunately for me, I’ll have to wait for the results to be revealed as CNN won’t be covering the deliberations on Election Day.