New Leader Joins Organization Poised to Achieve Next Level Scale and Impact
Sunnyvale, CA (September 15, 2022) — ReSurge International, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing access to life-transforming reconstructive surgical care in low-resource settings across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, welcomes Claire Lachance as its new President and Chief Executive Officer. Lachance will provide strategic leadership and vision for the organization as it increases its scale and impact by building global reconstructive surgical capacity to support sustainable development, poverty alleviation, and human dignity.
“Claire is a highly accomplished nonprofit executive and we are thrilled to have her come onboard to lead our team,” said Meredith Taylor, ReSurge’s Board Chair. “We have set a bold challenge for the next 10 years: to double the total impact achieved over our first 50 years. Claire is the right person to lead us in achieving this objective, and ultimately, our vision of a world where no person has to suffer a treatable or preventable disability due to geography or income level.”
Lachance is a transformative leader dedicated to designing, building, and managing high-performing organizations for social impact. As President and CEO, and alongside ReSurge’s board of directors, she will set the strategy and vision for the staff, more than 100 medical volunteers, and a network of and affiliated reconstructive surgeons in 19 countries. She will ensure that all of ReSurge’s programs — training, treatment, academic partnerships, and advocacy— are operating in an effective, equitable, and sustainable manner.
Prior to joining ReSurge, Lachance served as CEO for the Institute of Noetic Sciences, leading the internationally recognized research institute through an era of strategic and operational transformation. Before that, as president and principal consultant at Inspiration Quest, she counseled charitable foundations, nonprofit organizations, and public sector entities, advising them on strategic planning, capacity-building, impact measurement, financial sustainability, and governance. Earlier in her career, Ms. Lachance served in executive positions at Pacific Bell and MetLife. Ms. Lachance earned a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School and Bachelor’s degree in Economics and French from Tufts University.
“As a founding organization in the global surgery movement, ReSurge is a bold pioneer,” said Lachance. “My passion for ReSurge’s mission is rooted in my personal experience of life-changing surgery to correct childhood blindness. I am deeply inspired to join this extraordinary team of staff, volunteers, and partners as we work collectively to dramatically increase access to vitally needed reconstructive surgery in low-income countries around the world.”
Lachance succeeds outgoing President and CEO, Jeff Whisenant, who has led ReSurge for the past seven years. Whisenant is taking a sabbatical from full-time work and relocating to the east coast to continue to build on his impressive legacy in international development through consulting work.
