After 23 years with the Chattanooga-based nonprofit marriage and family ministry First Things First, CEO Julie Baumgardner will leave the organization for the WinShape Foundation, a nonprofit ministry established by Chick-fil-A founder Truett Cathy and his wife Jeanette Cathy.
"An unexpected personal event occurred in my own life when I received a call asking me if I would consider interviewing for a position," Baumgardner wrote in a message to First Thing First colleagues and supporters. "For the first time in 23 years, I felt strongly that I was supposed to walk through that door."
Baumgardner will serve as a senior director at WinShape, charged with developing an international initiative to strengthen marriages. Her new role begins Jan. 15, 2021.
"I truly believe this is what I have been called to next," she wrote.
WinShape is based in Mt. Berry, Georgia, but Baumgardner will remain in Chattanooga, she said.
"Everybody is still working virtually at this point," she said. "I will go back and forth."
Staff photo by Erin O. Smith / Julie Baumgardner, president and CEO of First Things First, speaks during the Chattanooga Area Manager of the Year luncheon at the Chattanoogan in 2017.Lauren Hall, director of marketing and communications for the past five years at First Things First, has been named interim CEO.
In a video Hall and Baumgardner posted online announcing the leadership change, Hall said the organization has served 4.5 million people in 2020 - nearly three times the 1.6 million people it served in 2019.
"First Things First has really had the opportunity to pivot and to serve people in their most challenging moments in their marriage and their parenting and life in general, in all their relationships," Baumgardner said in the video.
Baumgardner joined First Things First soon after it was established in 1997. She has been CEO since 2001.
Contact Mary Fortune at mfortune@timesfreepress.com. Follow her on Twitter at @maryfortune.