Tony Ferlenda, SFA’s new CEO
Three weeks ago, I joined the Sarcoma Foundation of America as its new CEO. What an honor and privilege it is to be part of the SFA family – and it is a family. A family of dedicated employees, board members and volunteers; business, hospital and non-profit partners; financial benefactors and state chapter leaders; survivors, family members and friends. All working to support the SFA mission to find the cure in our time. I am inspired by your courage, commitment and conviction.
I still have a lot to learn, but I do know this: To achieve our mission, we need more resources. Simply stated, to develop new drugs to treat and someday cure sarcoma, we need to fund more research. To fund more research, we need to raise more money. To raise more money, we need help from our family. Simple, but not easy. I am happy to say, however, that our Board of Directors has already taken the initiative to develop a plan to get us there. It is our VISION 2020 Campaign to Cure Sarcoma plan.
Some plan highlights:
- To expand and improve our Chapter Leader network, including having a Leader in every state by 2017
- To increase our revenue from $2 million to $10 million by 2017
- To have 3 new sarcoma drugs approved by the FDA by 2017, and 5 by 2020
- To ensure we have the kind of leadership (volunteer and paid) to drive the kind of growth needed to support the Vision.
These are ambitious goals. But the Board has wisely decided that we need to be more ambitious, even aggressive, in pursuing our mission.
You’ll be reading more about the VISION 2020 plan in the months and years to come, but as a member of the SFA family, we hope that you actively support our pursuit of the above goals. Because this is what’s needed to “find the cure in our time.”
