USA Swimming has named Jake Grosser as their new Chief Operating Officer, replacing Shana Ferguson who left in March to become the Chief of Sport and Games Delivery for the LA 28 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
This announcement comes 131 days into their renewed search for CEO after the resignation of Chrissi Rawak due to a SafeSport complaint. The organization has been without concrete leadership for 314 days since Tim Hinchey resigned last summer.
The Board of Directors promised a faster process in the new CEO search after the original search took 174 days. They are just under 40 days away from breaking that promise.
The organization has now filled two major positions on the executive board in the last few months during the CEO search. In April, USA Swimming hired Greg Meehan as National Team Director, and now they have promoted Grosser to COO.
Days to Fill Executive Positions
| Position | Days |
| CEO | 314* |
| National Team Director | 222 |
| COO | 104 |
*and counting (minus the nine days where Chrissi Rawak held the position)
Grosser was already serving on the USA Swimming executive team as the Managing Director for Marketing and Communications, which was a position he received last year at the same time Ferguson was promoted to COO.
In their release about his promotion to Managing Director, USA Swimming highlighted Grosser’s effort in launching the USA Swimming Network, and in helping launch USA Swimming’s alliance with Yahoo Sports.
Nikki Warner has been promoted to Senior Director of Communications in Grosser’s place.
Highlight to no CEO count is needed. This is getting ridiculous. This is another bad hire. Dude is not experienced for a role like this. Bob and this board need to hang it up. More like putting ego first. Afraid to ask. Who is even being considered?
Another poor hire. They have spent so much money and time. The sport deserves better than this. There are people that they are completely over looking for positions like this or to clean up the org. I met a woman at the Open last year on deck who was working on the officials project for them. She is insanely smart and leadership skills were what they need. I think she’s one of their contractors who was in the business world and was a D1 athlete and coach. They really should take a look at her.
They have spent so much money and time. The sport deserves better than this. There are people that they are completely over looking for positions like this or to help clean up the org. I met a woman at the Open last year on deck who was working on the officials project for them. She is insanely smart and leadership skills were what they need. I think she’s one of their contractors who was in the business world and was a D1 athlete and coach. They really should look at her.
They have spent so much money and time. The sport deserves better than this. There are people that they are completely over looking for positions like this or to help clean up the org. I met a woman at the Open last year on deck who was working on the officials project for them. She is insanely smart and leadership skills were what they need. I think she’s one of their contractors who was in the business world and was a D1 athlete and coach. They really should look at her.
They have spent so much money and time. The sport deserves better than this. There are people that they are completely over looking for positions like this or to help clean up the org. I met a woman at the Open last year on deck who was working on the officials project for them. She is insanely smart and leadership skills were what they need. I think she’s one of their contractors who was in the business world and was a D1 athlete and coach. They really should look at her.
One step forward, 314 back
Looks like all 9 out of the 12 board members downvoted me lol
What a clown show.
While I’m not generally a fan of cleaning house and a new leader spending lots of money to bring in an entirely new team when they get hired into an organization, I find it interesting that USA Seimming seems to be moving in a direction of filling all the sub-CEO positions before hiring the new CEO. I don’t know if this means we’re getting stuck with Bob, but it doesn’t seem like the board is interested in letting the new person do anything. And you can’t tell me that they know they need to fill these positions due to hosting the Olympics in three years. If that were the case, we’d already have hired a new CEO.
Power grab by the board.
This all fell apart when they just didn’t hire Shaina at the beginning. As you alluded to this seems like an inside “bag job” for Bob. While it’s one thing to hire a CEO and ask him to get to know his senior leadership team before making personnel decisions what qualified person is going to take the job and be told you can’t bring any of your own people in? Both Wielgus and Hinchey were given that opportunity. This is once a colossal screw up.
Second best decision after getting rid of Hinchey was not hiring Shana Ferguson in his place.