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Executive Management

Sean C. Rush
President and Chief Executive Officer

Sean C. Rush is President and CEO of JA Worldwide, the world's largest and fastest-growing NGO providing economic development support through work readiness, entrepreneurship, and financial literacy education to young people throughout the world. The organization reaches 9.3 million students in 123 countries annually.

Prior to joining JA Worldwide, Sean was General Manager of IBM's Global Education Industry until 2006 when he retired after 12 years with the company to pursue a Masters in Public Administration degree at the Harvard Kennedy School. Prior to joining IBM in 1994, he had a 14-year career with Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers) as a consultant, partner and chairman of the firm's education and non-profit practice.

Sean has been engaged with education for the past 30 years as an executive, consultant, board member and author. He has authored, edited or co-edited some 20 books or articles including Managing the Facilities Portfolio, The Learning Revolution, and The Future Compatible Campus and Reinventing Higher Education. He has also been a frequent speaker at conferences and professional seminars on a variety of education topics over the past 25 years.

He serves or has served as a director or trustee of a number of organizations and was a member of the Massachusetts Public Health Council for 14 years between 1982 and 1996.

In 2004, Sean was awarded the Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award by Boston College's Carroll Graduate School of Management. He was the year 2000 honoree of the Boston College Chapter of Beta Gamma Sigma (the national honor society for students of management). Sean was also awarded an honorary doctorate by Dowling College in New York as well as a University Excellence Award by Boston College for his work with the university's Irish Institute.

Sean holds a Masters in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, a B.A. and an M.B.A. from Boston College and an M.S. from Boston University.

 

Jack E. Kosakowski
Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer -- JA Worldwide®
President -- Junior Achievement USA

Jack E. Kosakowski is the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of JA Worldwide and President of Junior Achievement USA. JA Worldwide is the world’s largest and fastest-growing nonprofit organization dedicated to educating young people about work readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy. With operations in over 125 countries, JA Worldwide reaches over 9.2 million young people with its programs. Kosakowski has global operating responsibilities and total oversight of Junior Achievement in the United States.

Starting as a student in the Junior Achievement program in Toledo, Ohio, he attended the University of Toledo on a Junior Achievement scholarship and has since served in a variety of staff positions with ever increasing levels of responsibility over the past thirty-five years. He was named Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of JA Worldwide in 2003 and then given additional responsibility as President Junior Achievement USA in 2007.

Kosakowski was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve a two-year term on the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Literacy in January 2008. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Achievement Foundation, and is a member of the United States Commission for UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).

 

Tim Armijo
Chief Financial Officer 

Tim Armijo joined the Worldwide staff of Junior Achievement in September of 1987 as an accountant on the Finance department. As the chief financial officer, Armijo manages the financial and sales functions of the organization. Working together with Junior Achievement’s senior management group and the Worldwide board, Armijo guides the financial operations of JA Worldwide.  He also provides guidance and direction to area offices concerning accounting, taxes and national policies.

A Colorado native, he earned his B.A. from the University of Southern Colorado in business administration – accounting.  Armijo is also a Certified Public Accountant. 

 

Dr. John Box
Senior Vice President -- Education

John Box began is career in 1970 as a classroom teacher in the Racine Unified School District in Racine, Wisconsin. In 1983 he became assistant principal of Homestead High School in the Mequon-Thiensville School District in Mequon, Wisconsin. He was appointed Homestead’s principal in 1984. He held that position until 1990 when he left the district to become superintendent of the Hartland Arrowhead School District in Hartland, Wisconsin. In 1993 he became superintendent of the Monona Grove School District which serves the Madison, Wisconsin area communities of Monona and Cottage Grove. He held the position of superintendent at Monona Grove until returning to the Mequon-Thiensville School District as superintendent in the fall of 1996 and served in that capacity until 2004. Dr. Box presently serves as Senior Vice President of Education for JA Worldwide, headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Dr. Box earned his BS and MS degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Stout in Menomonie, Wisconsin and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His doctoral work was in the School of Education’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction.

Dr. Box is involved in a number of professional organizations. He is a member of the American Association of School Administrators, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and Phi Delta Kappa. Dr. Box also represents JA Worldwide as a member of The Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

During his career, Dr. Box has received numerous honors including being named Wisconsin Superintendent of the Year in 2000.

 

Howard Bartner
Senior Vice President -- Operations
Junior Achievement USA

Howard Bartner has served as the senior vice president for the U.S. Western Region since January 2007 and became SVP -- Operations of the newly created Junior Achievement USA in 2009. He is responsible for the service, support and assisting the 36 area offices in this region. Prior to this role, he served as Regional vice president for the U.S. Western and Southern regions. Bartner has served as vice president-area accreditation and alignment. He also held the positions of director-operations and director–executive transitions for the worldwide organization. Bartner joined Junior Achievement as program manager in Greater Hampton Roads (Norfolk, VA) in 1982. He held the positions of director-applied economics, director of operations and director of educational services prior to being named president of the Charleston, S.C., operation.

Bartner holds a B.A. in Business Administration, Management and Economics from Virginia Wesleyan College. He has served on the board of directors of the Boys and Girls Club of the Pikes Peak Region, and is an active volunteer for Junior Achievement of Southern Colorado Inc. He was the 2005 recipient of the Frances Hesselbein "How To Be" award for living JA’s values of respect, integrity, and excellence.

 

Don Creveling
Senior Vice President -- Human Resources

Don Creveling brings a wealth of human resources and senior management experiences with him to JA Worldwide. The bulk of that experience has been with the JCPenney Company, which he joined in 1971 in their New York office. Through a series of promotions and moves within the JCPenney Company, Creveling broadened his human resources and management knowledge, experience and skills and ultimately had responsibility for leading the human resources functions for all of their financial services businesses, including credit card, insurance, direct marketing and banking operations. His most recent assignment was executive vice president, director of Human Resources for JCPenney’s $1.2 billion Direct Marketing Services division in Plano, Texas. In 2001, that division was sold to Aegon USA. Since then, Creveling has been associated with Waters Consulting Group in Dallas, Texas, a human resources consulting firm.

He earned his Bachelors degree in Business Administration from Adelphi University. Through study, application and examination, Don has earned the Certified Compensation Professional (CCP) designation. His professional associations include memberships in the Society for Human Resource Management and World at Work.

 

Pete Curcio
Senior Vice President -- Operations
Junior Achievement USA

Pete Curcio's career with Junior Achievement began 28 years ago, where he started as a program manager in Youngstown, Ohio. He then moved to Mansfield, Ohio as executive director before returning to the Warren/Youngstown area as director of operations and then executive director. In 1984 Curcio became president of the Delaware Valley operation (Philadelphia).

Curcio has chaired Regional and National Conferences, and recently completed a two year term as Chair of the President’s Roundtable. He has served on numerous National Committees, Focus Groups and Task Forces. In 1992, as a member of the International Executive Service Corp., Curcio spent one month in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia establishing JA operations in the city.

He joined the JA Worldwide Headquarters' team as senior vice president of the Eastern U.S. Operations in 2007 and became SVP -- Operations of the newly created Junior Achievement USA in 2009.

Curcio is a graduate of Youngstown State University and holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration. Pete lives in Wilmington, Delaware, with his wife Tina, their two boys, Michael and Christopher, and their dogs Berri and Sprite.

 

Thomas Dewar
Senior Vice President -- Development

Tom Dewar became senior vice president of Development at JA’s Headquarters after 20 years of service with field offices in Detroit, Louisville, Milwaukee, and Midland, MI. Dewar is responsible for securing the financial resources required to support the development, refinement, and evaluation of JA’s programs as well as support services provided to all field office locations.

During his 10 years as president of the Detroit office, annual student involvement and financial support tripled, making Detroit the sixth largest operation in the nation. Dewar earned Junior Achievement’s most prestigious staff honor in 2001: The Charles Hook Award, as well as a collaboration award for securing nearly $2 million to support statewide program growth in Michigan.  He earned his B.S. in business administration and accounting at Northwood University in Midland, MI.

 

Cynthia Hofmann
Senior Vice President -- Marketing & Communications

As senior vice president of marketing, Cynthia Hofmann is responsible for expanding awareness for Junior Achievement around the world and for building loyalty among educators, volunteers, donors, and students.

Hofmann joined JA Worldwide from Blockbuster Inc. where she served as vice president marketing and customer relationship management. Hofmann had responsibility for driving the growth of the film and games sales and rental businesses as well as customer loyalty programs. She also led Blockbuster’s customer relationship efforts and initiatives to become more customer centric. Prior to her tenure at Blockbuster, Hofmann held positions at US WEST/Qwest and American Express, where she led acquisition and retention efforts for the wireless business and multiple Card product groups.

 

Caroline Jenner
Senior Vice President -- Europe

Caroline Jenner began her career as an entrepreneur—running her own private language school in Bratislava, Slovakia in the early 1990’s. She took an interest in business education since many of her younger students were prospective entrants to economics programs. In an effort to provide them with appropriate materials, she began to work with economics curricula developed by Junior Achievement.

Jenner set up JA in Slovakia and later became the regional director for JA operations in Central and Eastern Europe. 

In 1997, she left the former Czechoslovakia for Italy and a job in the private sector with Bata Shoes International. Her work involved business development strategies.

After three years, she returned to the not-for-profit sector, as director for Junior Achievement-Young Enterprise Europe, the Regional Operating Centre for JA Worldwide® in Europe.

Jenner has a Bachelor of Arts, First Class Honours, in French Language and Literature and also graduated from the Canadian Royal Conservatory of Music. She is Canadian and in addition to English speaks French, Italian, and Slovak.  She is based in Brussels, Belgium.

 

Linda Rimer                         
Senior Vice President -- Asia/Pacific and Americas Region

Linda Rimer, SVP of Asia/Pacific and Americas Regions since July of 2005. Linda has served in a variety of positions since joining Junior Achievement in 1989. As president and CEO of Junior Achievement of South Texas (San Antonio) from 1991 to 2000 the organization increased in revenues and students ten-fold. In 1994, Rimer received the Karl Flemke Pioneer Achievement Award and in 2000 she was awarded the prestigious Charles R. Hook Award in recognition of her achievements. Most recently, Rimer has served as president of Junior Achievement of the Bay Area (San Francisco) where she has increased revenues and decreased operating expenses by over $1 million without decrease in productivity. She holds a Ph.D. in Leadership Studies, an MBA with a marketing focus, a BA in Education and a BRE in Theology. Prior careers were missions work in Mexico with the Tarahumara Indians and marketing with AT&T.

 

Soraya Salti
Senior Vice President -- Middle East/N. Africa

As senior Vice President of MENA for Junior Achievement Worldwide, INJAZ al Arab, Soraya has the mandate to mobilize private sectors and ministries of education across the Arab World to join forces to create a new generation of business-oriented youth who will become entrepreneurs and employees of choice of corporations. Her efforts have led to the expansion of INJAZ into 11 Arab Countries reaching more than 100,000 youth.

Prior to JA Soraya worked on applying Michael Porter’s model for the economic development to Jordan, she joined Northwestern University’s International executive MBA program and has a bachelors in economics and accounting. She is also the winner of the 2006 Schwab Social Entrepreneur of the Year for Jordan, and a Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum.

 

Steve Schmidt
Senior Vice President -- Operations
Junior Achievement USA

Steve Schmidt served 18 years in the field with JA of Wisconsin prior to coming to JA Worldwide in 2004 as the regional vice president of the Western U.S. Promoted to senior vice president of the Midwestern U.S. region in July of 2006, Steve became SVP -- Operations of the newly created Junior Achievement USA in 2009.  

Schmidt is responsible for providing service to 47 field markets with a focus on training and district operations.

 

 

Buzzy Thibodeaux
Senior Vice President -- Junior Achievement USA

Buzzy Thibodeaux currently serves as the head of the Southern U.S. region, working to provide the leadership, guidance and service that ensures local JA Area success.

Thibodeaux  joined Junior Achievement’s Headquarters in August of 1997 as vice president of field marketing.  He was promoted to senior vice president, marketing & communications in 2000, making him responsible for the entire national marketing process.  Buzzy transitioned to become SVP Public Affairs in July of 2003 to lead JA’s national efforts in the nation’s capital. 

Previously, he was president of Junior Achievement of Greater Baton Rouge and Acadiana, which earned the Peak Performance Award four times and the National Junior Achievement Summit Award for consecutive years.  Before this, Thibodeaux held several positions within Junior Achievement of Greater New Orleans.

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, he earned his BS in business administration at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.  He currently volunteers as an advisor to the LSU Academic Center for Student Athletes.

 

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