![\"gustafson-2\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/gustafson.webp\")
<\/p>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Todd Gustafson will step down as president and CEO of Kinexus Group effective Sept. 8, the organization announced Monday, ending a 21-year tenure at the agency that runs the Michigan Works! offices for Berrien, Cass, and Van Buren counties.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter 21 years of leading the organization, Todd has decided to end his tenure at Kinexus Group, effective September 8,\u201d board chair George Saleeby said in a press release issued Monday morning. \u201cOn behalf of the Kinexus Group Board of Directors, we are incredibly proud of all that has been accomplished under Todd\u2019s leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n
Erin Wright, the organization\u2019s chief people officer since 2018, will serve as interim leader while the board searches for a successor. The release says the board identified Wright as its \u201cinterim designated successor\u201d in 2023 as part of succession planning.<\/p>\n
\u201cServing as President and Chief Executive Officer of Kinexus Group for more than two decades has been one of the greatest honors of my professional life,\u201d Gustafson said in the release. \u201cI am confident that the foundation we have built together will continue to drive impact under the organization\u2019s next leader.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gustafson joined the organization in 2005. The release describes his decision as a move \u201cto begin the next chapter in his career.\u201d It does not give a reason for the timing and does not mention the inquiry by the three counties that created the workforce board.<\/p>\n
The announcement comes seven weeks into that inquiry. On June 29, Berrien County\u2019s corporate counsel, writing on behalf of all three counties, demanded six years of records from the organization. Kinexus produced 467 pages on July 20 and about 1,650 more on Aug. 4. WSJM has published a series of special reports drawn from those records and from state monitoring files, most recently Monday morning, examining the board\u2019s governance, its executives\u2019 compensation, its audits, and the state\u2019s oversight of its performance. The organization\u2019s response to 22 written questions from WSJM is due Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring this transition, our focus is on keeping Kinexus moving forward, supporting our employees and continuing the work our communities count on us to do,\u201d Wright said in the release.<\/p>\n
This story will be updated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Todd Gustafson will step down as president and CEO of Kinexus Group effective Sept. 8, the organization announced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":816764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-816763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=816763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/816764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=816763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=816763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=816763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}