Elycia Cook was named the first African American CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters Colorado (BBBSC) in its 106-year history in March of 2021. Elycia is leading Big Brothers through a critical time in our nation’s history given the pandemic and the national and very public light shone on racial injustice and systemic barriers in 2020. Elycia’s personal and professional journey makes her uniquely qualified and the right person for this role at this time in BBBSC history. Elycia comes to BBBSC after serving as CEO of FRIENDS FIRST, a 501c3 non-profit organization that serves students and their parents and communities by educating and mentoring teens to make positive life choices and develop healthy
relationships. She assumed this role in 2012 and was with the organization since 2008. In 2020 she was named an Urban Spectrum Courageous Woman, Denver Business Journal Outstanding Woman, and she was honored by National Mentor with a Lifetime Achievement Award in Mentoring. In 2022 she was named a Most Admired CEO by the Denver Business Journal, One of Colorado’s Top 25 Women in Business and was a finalist of the CEO of the Year by CoBiz. In 2023, Elycia was named a Titan100 CEO. Perhaps, her greatest joy is leading BBBSC to win Large Agency of the Year and Board of the Year at the 2022 National Conference in her first year at the agency. Although this is probably 2nd to securing MacKenzie Scott funds, one of Elycia’s most proud achievements has been the acquisition of the nonprofit that under her leadership created a gold standard, evidence informed school-based Mentoring Program. This acquisition allows Big Brothers Big Sisters to serve more youth, lean further into Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion expanding our portfolio of mentoring services to groups and school-based. Elycia is really enjoying her career at Big Brothers Big Sisters as her agency is learning and growing in becoming a leading mentoring agency for 1-1 Mentoring plus that applies a JEDI Lens to everything that we do.