From the Nominator

Faced with a change in school leadership, we came up with a unique way to help our community get to know our new head of school beyond his resume. While introducing new leaders often follows a template—a letter to the community from the board chair, a social post, a webpage with the leader’s bio, and perhaps a “talking head” intro video of the new leader—we decided to go beyond the norm. We shared our new head of school’s thoughts on academics, the arts, athletics, spiritual life, and student life via an engaging five-episode video series, “Getting to Know Mr. Wirtz.” We started by asking students what they wanted to know about Mr. Wirtz and then invited 10 of them to pose these questions in person on video. In addition to our methodology, what made this communications initiative effective was our strategic roll-out plan. The roughly two-month campaign began with a series trailer (with cliffhanger!) on July 1, 2023—Mr. Wirtz’s first official day as head of school. With much of the campus empty over the summer, this series gave us a great way to build optimism and excitement for St. George’s next chapter. Our last video was distributed just before Mr. Wirtz’s first in-person event with families and alumni, our summer reception, and an article appeared in the alumni magazine that hit mailboxes just before the beginning of Mr. Wirtz’s first academic year.

From the Judges

This multifaceted campaign is a great example of how to introduce a new head of school to many stakeholders and across multiple channels. The role of students in the campaign as interviewers was especially engaging, providing a humanizing and student-centered facet to this leadership transition for St. George's School.