Kim Perez Email & Phone Number

Evanston, Illinois

For 4.5 years, I had the privilege of leading The Cradle in service of the mission: Building families through adoption. Supporting families through life’s challenges. Strengthening communities through education.

For 6.5 years, I was privileged to lead the talented team of Board, staff and volunteers at the People’s Resource Center in Wheaton, IL as their Executive Director. This is a vital, multi-service organization serving community members of DuPage County that are living in or near poverty.

Directed all operations for the division of Child and Family Services with a $12+ million budget, more than 200 employees serving thousands of children and families in four states, including programs such as: Head Start; Early Head Start; Healthy Families, along with its Doula services; Foster Care including services to English and Spanish-speaking families, as well as Specialized Foster Care; Intact Family Services for Spanish-speaking families; Latino Services providing, in addition to those mentioned, translation and interpretation for DCFS-involved families, as well as Refugio, a domestic violence support group for Latina women and youth, and; Lifelink’s International Adoption, operating in four states and more than ten countries.Responsibilities included financial planning and oversight, long- and short-term planning, partnership and collaboration development, community engagement and involvement, effective communication, employee relations, etc.

Promoted to Associate Vice President from Acting Vice President; directed all day-to-day operations for the division of Child and Family Services in the unplanned absence of the Vice President; assumed responsibility for programs including Head Start, Early Head Start, Healthy Families, Foster Care and Latino Services; successfully provided stability and continuity for staff and operations during a time of organizational upheaval; successfully navigated change in peer/colleague relationship to one of supervisor/supervisee relationship with program leadership team; engaged with the executive leadership of the organization as well as the Boards of Directors.

Developed, implemented and managed the Continuous Quality Improvement program for the organization; served as Risk Manager for the division of Child and Family Services; effectively supervised other quality improvement staff members assuring efficiency of tasks and compliance with regulations and standards; coordination of the full reaccreditation progress (through Council on Accreditation) for 20+ service standards and all of the corporate/organizational standards.

Masters, Social Work

Bs, Psychology

Activities and Societies: Kappa Kappa Gamma