Harvest Hope Food Bank taps Erinn Rowe as new CEO
.jpeg "Erinn Rowe has been named the new CEO of Harvest Hope Food Bank.")
The state’s largest food bank has found a new leader, and it is someone who is familiar to the organization.
The board of the nonprofit Harvest Hope Food Bank has selected Erinn Rowe, a former board chair at Harvest Hope who has a long background in the financial industry, to be the organization’s new chief executive officer, effective immediately.
Harvest Hope, which has hubs in Columbia, Greenville, and Florence, serves 20 counties across South Carolina. The charitable organization feeds 38,000 people in need each week and hands out more than 27 million pounds of food every year.
Rowe, who has undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of South Carolina, has spent the last 10 years working for Bank of America, most recently as senior treasury sales analyst for commercial banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. She also previously owned a franchise of Young Chef’s Academy, a children’s cooking school that promotes healthy eating.
She is a former Harvest Hope board member and chaired the board in 2019 and 2020.
Harvest Hope’s previous CEO, Wendy Broderick , died in January after quietly battling what the board called a “significant health challenge” for an extended time. She was 46.
“I am so excited and honored and humbled to start out on this journey with Harvest Hope,” Rowe told The State. “Harvest Hope is very near and dear to my heart. I always tell my family that food is my love language, so this aligns directly to how I like to give back. And there is a sense of urgency because of the need that is in our state, due to multiple factors, COVID-19 being the obvious one.”
Harvest Hope’s current board chair, John Welsh, nodded toward Rowe’s knowledge of the organization from her time as a board member, and said that experience is needed after Broderick’s passing.
“We are fortunate to have someone who possesses such a deep knowledge of Harvest Hope be able to step in to lead our organization during this difficult time,” Welsh said in a prepared statement. “Erinn helped Wendy begin her career with Harvest Hope. It ended too soon for all of us, but we are grateful Erinn is willing to join Harvest Hope full-time to carry out our mission of serving people in need.”
Harvest Hope has about 80 employees, and also relies on an army of volunteers statewide.
Rowe said succeeding Broderick in the CEO role at the large food bank is an honor.
“She was an amazing leader and an amazing philanthropist,” Rowe said. “She was very mission-driven and she had great strength of character. That was reflected all the way up until she passed. She always put her mission first. We want to keep that focus. This year is our 40th anniversary and we are looking to the future and we are looking to the landscape and what the needs will look like post-pandemic.
“We want to continue driving our mission, which is to transform lives in the community by feeding the hungry and addressing food insecurity.”
