MONTREAL — After being without a top professional for almost a year, and following an international search for a replacement, Federation CJA in Montreal has chosen Paris-based Argentine native Andres Spokoiny as its new executive director.
Spokoiny, who has been working with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) for 12 years mainly in the Baltic states and Poland, will assume the Montreal post in June.
He replaces Danyael Cantor, who resigned in April 2008 as the federation’s executive vice-president after 11 years to become executive director of the Bronfman Jewish Education Centre, a federation agency. Senior federation staff and lay administrators have been filling in since he left.
Federation president Marc Gold believes Spokoiny fits the federation’s needs “to a T,” despite his lack of direct experience in Canadian Jewish affairs.
In addition to his global knowledge of Jewish communal life today and experience in rebuilding Jewish communities from the ashes of Communism, the federation was attracted to Spokoiny for a number of other reasons. He is fluent in English and French, as well as Hebrew, Yiddish, Spanish and Portuguese; he’s youngish at “about 40”, and he has a background in both Jewish learning (he attended a rabbinical seminary) and in business (he holds an MBA) and worked for IBM for nine years.
His Argentine nationality and time living abroad are also assets, Gold said, as the federation continues to try to integrate newcomers from the former Soviet bloc, Latin America and France into the community.
Spokoiny and his wife, Erica, have two small children. This is another positive attribute, Gold said, because the federation is trying to reach out more to young families.
“In our search, we set our sights high,” said Gold. “We were looking for someone who was strategic and decisive, a leader and a driver of change as we confront the challenges of today and beyond…
“Although he has been based in Paris, he is very familiar with the challenges facing North American federations with whom he has worked closely on various projects with the JDC.”
Gold described the search for a new top professional as an “exhaustive process” in which hundreds of potential candidates were considered. The headhunter Egon Zehnder International in Montreal and the Mandel Centre for Leadership Excellence at United Jewish Communities in New York were consulted.
The 95-year-old JDC is the largest Jewish American non-governmental organization, supporting Jewish communities in need around the world. Since the fall of Communism, it has played a major role in the revival of Jewish communities that were cut off from the Jewish world for decades.
Spokoiny was also concurrently the director of Leatid Europe, an institute training Jewish lay and professional leaders throughout Europe.
After taking up his duties in Montreal, he is expected to continue his association with the JDC International Centre for Community Development at Oxford University.
Prior to joining the JDC, Spokoiny worked at IBM, where he was responsible for training and development, including recruitment in the southern region of Latin America.
“I’m honoured and humbled by this responsibility,” Spokoiny said in a statement. “Montreal is a great and unique community that, in many aspects, can and will be a ‘model community’ in North America and beyond. I’m looking forward to this personal and professional challenge.”
Spokoiny, who is of Ashkenazi background, holds a BA from the Conservative Rabbinical Seminary in Buenos Aires and earned his MBA from the University of Buenos Aires. He also studied at the Melton Centre of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.