BOLD Program – Achieving Its Primary Goal

HAB’s Board Leadership Development Program (BOLD) was specifically developed and implemented by the avocado industry to attract, inform, educate, and turn out volunteer leaders for our industry’s many boards of directors that govern, and lead all of our associations.

In fact, the definition of the program from the start has been ““to build a pipeline of future avocado industry leaders that are ready, and that can and will serve on the HAB or HAPRIO Association’s Board of Directors.”

The associations, who have supported this initiative from the start, and are the intended beneficiaries of the effort, also pay for the program through their sponsorship of the selected participants. So, for us to measure the program’s success, and to determine the ROI to the associations the only logical metric would be – are the graduates entering into volunteering for board service – and are they being given the opportunity in the nomination/election/selection process that these many boards utilize.

The answer is a resounding – YES, it’s working! Back in May of this year, we shared with the HAB Board of directors that 16 of the first 24 members of BOLD Classes 1 & 2 are now either serving on an industry board right now or are in the nomination election process for this year’s election cycle!!

We would say that is a record to run on! We are quite proud of those numbers, and we are thankful that our advocacy is turning otherwise “potential” future leaders into active, participating individuals that our industry needs, and who will continue to drive our future success.

The success runs over most of the boards, and we have seen the associations utilize the program to find new talent in the sponsorship and selection process. We actively ask our association to talk with the BOLD Classes to tell their stories, to communicate not only what their association does in the marketplace, but also shares their needs to these interested future leaders, and in many cases to recruit the future talent that they will need to push their programs, and their country-of-origin boards into the future.

When HAB developed this program back in 2019, after seeing the need of future leadership that are educated, informed, and ready to serve from day one – the industry stepped up, and supported, not only financially through the student sponsorships, but stepped in through having previous or current board members serve as mentors for the program, as well as to open their meeting doors to these interested industry stakeholders, and invited them to take a look at the work of the boards.

It’s the collaboration of this industry that gets things like this done. We can and do act in creating benefits for all of us, it’s one of our major strengths, and creating these future leaders through our own actions is another reason to be confident in our future success – Yes, BOLD brings out the best in all of us.

Learn More About the BOLD Program Here