RA CEO Hiring Update Expected At Upcoming Meeting: Board President

RESTON, VA — Could the Reston Association Board of Directors be close to naming a candidate to fill the vacant chief executive officer position?

On Monday night, the RA Board met in executive session to discuss personnel matters pertaining to the search for a new CEO. The whole board was present at the meeting.

Due to technical difficulties, the 30-minute meeting originally scheduled to start at 8 p.m. was delayed by about 35 minutes. When the meeting finally started, the board quickly voted to go into executive session to discuss the CEO hiring, but the session ended about 6 minutes later.

The board unanimously approved a motion made by President Sarah Selvaraj-D'Souza certifying that board members had only discussed matters “appropriate for executive session, of a violation, personnel or a contractural nature, or involving discussions with counsel.”

Given the briefness of the meeting and its focus on the new CEO search, it's possible a hiring contract or offer to a candidate — or the acceptance of an offer — were the subject of the discussion.

Patch reached out to Selvaraj-D'Souza to see if a new CEO had been hired or a candidate had been identified to fill that role.

"We should have an announcement at the July 28th Regular Board Meeting," she said, in an email, followed by the "fingers crossed" emoji.

The association has been without a full-time CEO since the beginning of September 2021. That's when former CEO Harry P. "Hank" Lynch stepped down to become the CEO at WildAid, a nonprofit focused on protecting endangered species and their habitats.

Throughout the rest of 2021 and the first few months of this year, the former RA Board was focused on hiring a new CEO before the new board was seated at the annual meeting in April. That failed to happen.

The current nine-member board, which includes five new members since April, made hiring a new CEO as one of its priorities.

Ever since Lynch stepped down last September, Larry Butler, RA's chief operating officer, has been serving as the acting CEO. Perhaps that will change following the July 28 board meeting.