World Neighbors Names Dr. Kate Schecter New President and CEO

International development organization continues commitment to sustainability programs to help others help themselves and end global hunger, poverty and disease

OKLAHOMA CITY — World Neighbors, an Oklahoma City-based nonprofit organization founded in 1951, announced today that its Board of Trustees unanimously supported the appointment of Dr. Kate Schecter as the organization’s next President and CEO. Dr. Schecter will lead the organization’s international programs that espouse a long-term, holistic approach to help strengthen impoverished communities to overcome hunger, poverty, and disease.

Dr. Schecter’s professional experience includes over 22 years working for various organizations, including an international nonprofit organization focused on global health, the World Bank, a leading foundation and several prestigious universities, including Columbia and Harvard. She succeeds Melanie Macdonald, the organization’s first female President and CEO, who guided World Neighbors for ten years and announced plans last fall to re-­‐establish her executive coaching and organizational consulting practice.

“We have never been so poised for growth as we are right now and Dr. Schecter is the perfect fit to help us reach our full potential as an organization,” says Mindy Roe Galoob, World Neighbors Board Chair and head of the search committee. “With her eagerness to continue the collaborative work with Feed the Children and her focus on increasing our support base, we are poised to deepen and widen our global impact so that more communities around the world can experience the power of our unique, grassroots and transformative work.”

In March 2013, World Neighbors became a subsidiary of Feed the Children, another Oklahoma City-­‐based international nonprofit organization, in a unique strategic collaboration. In an effort to support and expand World Neighbors programs that help build self-­‐sufficient communities around the world, Feed the Children assumed the responsibilities of all of World Neighbors back-­‐office and administrative support functions.

With the appointment of the new World Neighbors President and CEO, both organizations are in a strategically strong position to expand their outreach.

“Dr. Schecter is incredibly well-­‐qualified and a great fit for both organizations from a programmatic standpoint. She understands the need to build a community’s capacity to care for itself, and she believes in collaboration at its deepest level,” says Kevin Hagan, Feed the Children’s President and CEO. “She immediately sees the synergies between both the Feed the Children and World Neighbors programs, and we look forward to taking the best of both organizations to start new programming together.”

Dr. Schecter spent many years of her childhood overseas with her family when her father worked as a journalist for Time Magazine. She attended grade school in Moscow, Hong Kong and Tokyo and has traveled internationally extensively all her life. She currently lives in Washington, DC where her husband, Ari Roth, is the Artistic Director of Theater J. They have two daughters, Isabel and Sophie.

“I look forward to spending time in Oklahoma City and to meeting the many people who have supported the organization over the last 63 years. I will be dividing my time between Oklahoma City, Washington D.C. and our field operations,” says Dr. Schecter. “Over the next two years, I intend to visit the 13 countries where World Neighbors is operating programs. It is important for World Neighbors to have a strong and visible physical presence again in Oklahoma City to remain in touch with our founder’s original vision.”