Brecksville resident tapped to be first president and CEO of newly merged Boys and Girls Clubs

by Tess Wolfe 

Last summer, several regional Boys & Girls Clubs and two regional youth organizations found common cause in merging into a single entity, Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Ohio. In April, Brecksville resident Jeff Scott, 38, was named its first president and CEO. 

In addition to Boys & Girls Clubs in Cleveland, Akron, Lorain County and Sandusky, the merger included two subsidiaries of the former Boys & Girls Clubs of Cleveland: the Cleveland Peacemakers Alliance and Open Tone Music. 

“There’s such an awesome network of folks across Northeast Ohio that aids in this mission – folks that learn about it and fall in love with it – and the more people know, the more people can support kids in the region,” Scott said. 

Scott’s work ethic began with jobs at his family’s construction business M.L. Scott & Sons, founded in 1904 and headquartered in Brooklyn, Ohio. Broadening his business acumen, he went on to hold leadership positions in manufacturing, technology and banking, including Key Bank in Cleveland, where his wife, Jessica, also works. 

The Scotts, married eight years, recently moved to Brecksville, having lived in Broadview Heights since 2012. They have two sons, ages 1 and 3. 

“My other jobs were national, not part of the community,” Scott said. “Jessica and I were looking for a way to do something more impactful for the community. Being able to use my business skills sets to impact kids has been an awesome mission to get behind.” 

 Scott is native to Northeast Ohio, having graduated in 2000 from Normandy High School in Parma, where he grew up. He earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Huntington University in Indiana. As a college student, he was a mentor to children at the local Boys & Girls Club for four years. 

“As a mentor to kids when I was in college, we were spending a lot of time in the teen center, mentoring kids in academics and sports, air hockey and all that good stuff,” he said. “Now, as the CEO, my job is to make sure we have the right structure, such that we can provide better programs consistently to kids across Northeast Ohio as a result.” 

The Scotts have long supported children through the nonprofit Compassion International, sponsoring two children from Haiti from birth through teenage years. Scott has served for two years on the board of Countryside Conservancy, which helps run farms on land in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. 

Scott was selected from a pool of candidates hailing from across the country after a nationwide search over several months conducted by the Boys & Girls Clubs of America in conjunction with a search committee of board members and the executive search firm Egon Zehnder. 

“The after-school programming that [BGCNEO] provides across Northeast Ohio is a critical component of the fabric of the region,” Scott said. “I would like people to be aware of that mission and how they can be involved, whether that’s through volunteering, through their generosity in funding or looking potentially to join one of the regional boards and lend their expertise.”  For more information about Boys and Girls Clubs of Northeast Ohio, visit bgcneo.org.

Feature image photo caption: Jeff Scott. Photo courtesy Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Ohio