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After stepping away from a long career in nonprofit leadership, Janet Simmons is back in the spotlight—this time as BREC’s interim superintendent. Appointed in late May to replace outgoing superintendent Corey Wilson, Simmons says she’s moving quickly to tackle communication breakdowns, organizational misalignment and a culture resistant to change—while setting the stage for a new permanent leader.
Business Report sat down with Simmons, the former president and CEO of Hope Ministries, to discuss her plans for the agency. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
How did the opportunity come about?
I retired from Hope Ministries in December. Hope Ministries has worked with BREC for about eight years. We were doing consulting, counseling, coaching and training. I’m very familiar with the BREC team. When I got the call from the BREC Commission asking me if I’d be interested in being the interim, I had to think about it for a little bit and see whether or not that was something we could do. My husband and I needed to talk about it and pray about it. In about a week, I came to the determination that it’s something that God has called me to do.
What have the last few weeks looked like?
I met with Corey and the executives a couple of weeks ago, and kind of did the hand off. June 1 was my first day, and we just hit the road running. My task is to go in and find what the problems are and fix them within six months. I’ve got a lot of work to do.
What are your priorities and focus areas?
Communication is No. 1. HR, alignment and making sure that we’re all on the same page and doing the same thing. Getting BREC ready for a new superintendent to come in is No. 4. Restructuring is No. 5 and cleaning up is the last thing.
What would you say are some challenges that you’re going to face?
Push back, probably. People not wanting to change. One of the biggest challenges BREC has, is that, ‘Well, we always did it this way.’ ‘Oh, this is the way we always did it.’ And nobody wants to change. They want to stay in their ways of doing things.
How would you define success for your tenure?
If we accomplish the six things I said earlier. Those six things are huge. Communication is the No. 1 problem: People not returning phone calls, people not returning emails, people not returning text messages, or taking two to three weeks. That was the culture. We’ve got to do a culture shift.
What is the status of the audits?
We should have the 2024 audit finished in October, so we should be up to date by October. Next year, we’ve got our accreditations coming up again. We’re starting to work on the accreditation right now. That’s going to take six to nine months to do. The 2023 audit is done.
