REES Assistant Director Graduates from Leadership Academy
REES Assistant Director Shanna Castillo was honored as a graduate of the City’s Leadership Institute at the Executive Development Recognition Ceremony held at One Police Plaza on June 17. The highly competitive Institute prepares mid-level executives to be innovative leaders for the City of New York.
“Shanna is an exceptional leader and the REES team couldn’t be more proud of her accomplishments,” REES Director Sideya Sherman said. “I’m excited to see her apply lessons learned from the Leadership Institute, which is focused on strategic organizational change, to help REES and NYCHA address the challenges and opportunities that lay ahead.”
Ms. Castillo, who has been with NYCHA since 2012, participated in the Institute from October 2014 to February 2015. Some of the sessions included, “Communicating a Vision for Change,” “Leading a Multigenerational Department,” and “Using Data for Strategic Change.” These lessons were useful, she said, “given the position that NYCHA is in currently with the launch of NextGeneration NYCHA and REES’s relatively new Zone Model approach of service coordination with outside partners to support residents to increase their income and assets.”
Ms. Castillo was also impressed with the facilitators of the program, experts from the public, private, and non-profit sectors, and with her fellow graduates, who represented a host of City agencies. The only NYCHA employee in the class of 2015, Ms. Castillo wants to encourage other NYCHA managers to apply for the program because she thinks it would be beneficial to the Authority.
“In addition to learning tools to help me in my position at REES, it was really great to get a broader idea of what is going on in the City as a whole and learn how we can all work better together,” Ms. Castillo said. “And it’s great to see the amount of talent the City attracts.”
For more information about The Leadership Institute, visit http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcas/html/employees/leadership_institute.shtml.
