President-elect Jennifer Jones is poised to lead Rotary into a vibrant, diverse future
President-elect Jennifer Jones’ office at Rotary International world headquarters in Evanston, Illinois, feels different from those of her predecessors, but that’s in no way a result of the fact that on 1 July she will become Rotary’s first female president. On the wall hangs a recent gift from a friend — a black scratch-off map on which Jones can record every Rotary destination she visits during the next two years. When we speak it’s September, two months since she took office as president-elect, and on the map, only Chicago has been revealed — many planned events were canceled or postponed due to a rise in COVID-19 cases. Today, Jones is the only person on the 18th floor of One Rotary Center. There are no phones ringing, no fingers tap-tap-tapping on keyboards in the cubicles outside her door. One could do cartwheels through the Rotary boardroom and nobody would notice.
Jones elbow-bumps her visitors, Rotary magazine senior staff writer Diana Schoberg and senior editor Geoffrey Johnson. Then, spaced apart at a table in her office, they discuss her vision for the year ahead. “If you start to think about how exponentially Rotary can touch the world, we’re more than a club,” Jones says. “We’re a movement.”
Jones is president and CEO of Media Street Productions Inc. in Windsor, Ontario, where she is a member of the Rotary Club of Windsor-Roseland. (Her husband, Nick Krayacich, is past president of the Rotary Club of La Salle Centennial and was recently selected as governor-nominee-designate of District 6400.) Her company’s specialties include radio and television production, corporate and nonprofit videos, and live show productions.
