Breaking Bread & Raising Dough (At Home)

Samantha is an experienced non-profit leader with 30 years in the sector and broad experience in fundraising, marketing, board relations, organizational leadership, and coaching and mentoring teams.  At KCI Samantha is driven by the desire to help organizations and candidates reach their potential and get to the best result.   She respectfully challenges the status quo during the search process to ensure diversity of lived and professional experience is valued, while functioning as a collaborative, insightful search partner.  A Master of Social Work, Samantha also has a certificate in Adult Education and has completed the Ivey Executive Leadership Program.

As the national lead for KCI’s executive search and talent practice since 2007, Tara has partnered with a wide variety of non-profit and charitable clients across Canada, helping them to reach out and draw suitable candidates towards available opportunities. Tara has led or played a key role in more than 450 searches across the country during her time with KCI.

Beyond her executive search work, Tara focuses on organizational development issues, helping clients to define their staffing needs, organizational structure, and recruitment, retention, and succession strategies. Tara also co-leads KCI’s compensation benchmarking services and serves as an internal advisor and consultant for colleagues who focus in other KCI practices areas.

Tara holds an MBA (McMaster University), a BEd (University of Toronto), and a BSc (University of Guelph). Tara has also completed the Institute of Corporate Directors Not for Profit Governance Essentials course.  Prior to joining KCI, Tara worked for 10+ years in Advancement leadership roles in the education sector. She is also a former high-school teacher of science, math, business, and phys-ed.

An active volunteer with professional associations and charitable organizations, Tara currently sits on the Board of the Network of Non-profit Search Consultants, the Governance committee of the MS Scientific Research Foundation, and the Strategic Planning Committee of Providence Healthcare Foundation.

 

Ellie Rusonik is a highly experienced development professional with over twenty years’ in the not-for-profit sector.  Ellie brings broad leadership expertise in board development, philanthropy and major gift fundraising, events and community outreach, and marketing/communications. Ellie is known as a dynamic leader and consummate team player who has hired, inspired, and coached many promising and successful leaders; she is valued for her strategic thinking, strong project management and facilitation, and collaborative and communicative style.  Ellie is an active volunteer who makes an impact by sharing her skills and expertise.  She is a regular speaker on topics related to recruitment and talent management.  Ellie holds a BSc in Kinesiology and a certificate in Sport Administration from York University.