Madeleine Jacobs To Retire As CEO

American Chemical Society Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer Madeleine Jacobs will retire at the end of 2014 after 24½ years of service, including 8½ years as C&EN’s editor-in-chief.

“The past 10 years have been very good for ACS through difficult times,” says ACS Board Chair William F. Carroll Jr. “Madeleine has been a great change manager, leader for staff, and face for the society, particularly in Washington, D.C. We’ll miss her. And I defy anyone to find someone more broadly knowledgeable and energetic. ACS, the board, and I personally, will miss her at the top but will benefit from her future engagement as a member.”

As CEO, Jacobs led ACS staff to an impressive portfolio of substantive achievements. They include consistently returning a positive net contribution to the society for 10 consecutive years; expanding membership, education, and public affairs offerings; growing the ACS journals program; and posting record-breaking growth in the databases underpinning Chemical Abstracts Service’s SciFinder.

ACS’s fund-raising activities expanded significantly during her tenure. Most notable was the $34 million gift in 2009 from the Hach Scientific Foundation to support high school chemistry teaching—the largest gift in ACS history.

At C&EN, Jacobs built a highly professional team of journalists dedicated to accuracy and timeliness, many of whom are still at C&EN. She also raised C&EN’s credibility among academic and business audiences and its reader satisfaction.

Among Jacobs’s recent accomplishments is the selection of Manuel Guzman as president of Chemical Abstracts Service. With Guzman and ACS Publications President Brian Crawford, “we have ensured the sustainability of our information publishing services,” Jacobs says.“It has been a huge honor to work with the talented ACS staff and our many ACS members for 24 years,” Jacobs says. “I am confident that I am leaving ACS well positioned with a strong foundation for an even brighter future.”