Gery Paredes Vásquez has been appointed Interim CEO of YWCA Madison, the non-profit announced on Tuesday.
YWCA Madison is “dedicated to eliminating racism, empowering women, and promoting peace, justice, freedom, and dignity for all,” according to its mission. Paredes Vásquez started at YWCA Madison in 2012 as a volunteer racial justice facilitator, before becoming coordinator and manager in this same department. She eventually became the Race and Gender Equity Director in 2018. During her tenure, Paredes Vásquez built on 13 years of racial justice work in this department and spearheaded numerous collaborative initiatives with her team and a diverse range of individuals and organizations, both locally and nationally, according to a press release from YWCA Madison.
“With a profound commitment to intersectional justice, collective healing and liberation, Gery brings a wealth of experience and dedication to this role,” YWCA Madison’s Board President Angela Arrington said in a press release. “Gery Paredes Vásquez’s appointment as Interim CEO marks a new chapter for YWCA Madison as it continues its mission to eliminate racism, empower women, and promote peace, justice, freedom, and dignity for all. The organization looks forward to the leadership and vision that Gery will bring to this role”.
Notable among her contributions are rooting the Racial Justice Series Community Series, the annual Racial Justice Summit, the Creating Equitable Organizations program, the Transformative Leadership for Equity series as well as intersectional race-based offerings such as the BIPOC Healing Justice and Co-Liberation Series and the Embodied Racial Justice series for white identifying folks, accordiong to a press release.
“As the first Latina woman in this role, and having had the honor of receiving this opportunity from our beloved Vanessa McDowell-Atlas, I look forward and feel joyful to build on and deepen our practice of solidarity across communities and sectors for racial justice, collective healing and liberation,” said Paredes Vásquez. “Recommitting ourselves to practice our values of humanity, community, growth and restoration, feels even more critical in these too often heartbreaking times.”
After 9 years with YWCA Madison, McDowell-Atlas, YWCA-Madison’s former CEO, recently joined a new organization called Black Girl Ventures as its Chief Operating Officer (COO).
