JA History :: Our Story

Today and Beyond

July 1, 2004 - JA Worldwide® is officially established, resulting from the merger of Junior Achievement Inc. and Junior Achievement International. 

January 2008 - Sean Rush becomes the organization’s 17th president and CEO.

July 1, 2011 - Junior Achievement reorganizes to better focus both globally and locally creating Junior Achievement USA™.  JA Worldwide continues to serve the needs of students and volunteers around the globe through 6 regionally focused subdivisions utilizing a global strategy to lead the organization.

Today, Junior Achievement’s network of 129 individual area operations reach more than four million students in the United States, with an additional 5.7 million students served by operations in 122 other countries worldwide. Since its creation in 1919, JA has impacted more than 105 million young people worldwide, with more than 71 million students reached in the United States.

From an idea born at a conference in 1916 dedicated to the advancement of boys’ and girls’, to the creation of the Boys’ and Girls’ Bureau in 1919 which became the Junior Achievement Bureau in 1920, JA has delivered on its promise of hope and opportunity to more than 50 million American youth and millions of additional young people around the world. With close to a century of work, JA continues to reinvent itself and remains pertinent to the advancement of youth in today’s fast-paced world. 

 

 

 

Read the book Junior Achievement: A History by Joe Francomano and Wayne & Darryl Lavitt to learn more about the history of Junior Achievement.