Michele Berg

Deputy General Secretary
Rotary Club of Evanston
Illinois, USA

Michele Berg is the Deputy General Secretary of Rotary International, leading the day-to-day operations of the Secretariat. She is also chiefly responsible for RI strategy, including implementation of Rotary’s Action Plan.

Michele is also a Rotarian – a past president of the Rotary Club of Evanston, Paul Harris Fellow, Paul Harris Society member, and a Benefactor. She graduated from Loyola University Chicago with a major in Italian and earned her MBA from the University of Illinois at Chicago with a dual specialization in marketing and international business.

Valarie Wafer

Chair, Rotary International Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee
Rotary Club of Collingwood South Georgian Bay

Valarie Wafer is a champion of Rotary’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) strategy. She has chaired the Rotary International DEI taskforce since its inception, and she advises clubs and districts around the world on the ways that DEI can enhance Rotary’s impact.

Valarie is a past Director and Vice-President of Rotary International and has held numerous international roles. She has also participated in various service-based activities, including as a Group Study Exchange leader to Australia in 2010 and Rotary Foundation Cadre leader, travelling to Kenya and Tanzania to audit long-term Rotary Foundation grant activity.

In her non-Rotary life, Valarie had a 27-year career as a restaurant owner in Toronto. The brand, Tim Hortons, is the most recognized and iconic franchise in Canada. The Wafer’s restaurants were best known for its inclusive hiring practices and accessibility, especially in the area of employment.

R. Gordon R. McInally

President 2023-24
Rotary Club of South Queensferry
West Lothian, Scotland

Gordon R. McInally is president of Rotary International. He joined Rotary in 1984 at age 26  and is a member of the Rotary Club of South Queensferry in Scotland. He has served as president and vice president of Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland. He has also served RI as a director.

Gordon is a Dentist by profession. He operated his own dental practice in Edinburgh until 2016, was chair of the East of Scotland branch of the British Paedodontic Society and has held various academic positions. He has also served as a presbytery elder, chair of the Queensferry parish congregational board, and commissioner to the general assembly of the Church of Scotland.

In his free time, McInally enjoys rugby, good food and wine, and stick dressing, the traditional Scottish craft of making walking sticks.

Stephanie A. Urchick

President-elect 2023-24
Rotary Club of McMurray
Pennsylvania, USA

Stephanie Urchick is a member of the Rotary Club of McMurray, Pennsylvania, USA. She will serve RI as president in 2024-25. She has been an RI director and Rotary Foundation trustee and has served RI in numerous capacities, including as training leader, regional Rotary Foundation coordinator, and RI president's representative. In addition, Stephanie was a representative and member-at-large to three sessions of the Council on Legislation.

A Rotary member since 1991, Stephanie has lived her passion for service. She has participated in a variety of international service projects, including National Immunization Days in India and Nigeria. In Vietnam, she worked with clubs to help build a primary school and travelled to the Dominican Republic to install water filters. A student of several Slavic languages, she has mentored new Rotary members in Ukraine and coordinated a Rotary Foundation grant for a mammography equipment and a biopsy unit for a hospital in Poland. In its commemorative book, the Rotary Club of Krakow, Poland, noted Stephanie as a key figure for helping the re-birth of Rotary in post-Communist Poland.

Currently, Stephanie is helping to partner clubs and districts in the U.S. with Rotary clubs in  Albania, Kosovo, and Ukraine for humanitarian and educational services.  Stephanie's professional background is in the higher education, consulting, and entertainment industries. She received her doctorate degree in Leadership Studies from  Indiana University of Pennsylvania and has been recognized and awarded by The Rotary  Foundation and numerous community and international organizations.

Ghim Bok Chew

Rotary Club of Bugis Junction
Singapore

Born in Singapore, Ghim Bok “G.B.” Chew graduated in 1981 with an Honors degree in computer science from the University of Liverpool, England, before returning to his home country to launch a career as a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and private equities fund manager. After opening his first business, an IT systems integrator, he took a bankrupt food processing company to an initial public offering after turning it around. Now semiretired,  Chew maintains real estate and real estate management companies in Singapore, in addition to his fund management holding company.

Chew joined Rotary in 1996. Immediately after serving as district governor in 2013, he took on several zone and international roles. He is presently the Host Organization Committee chair for the Rotary International Convention in Singapore in 2024.

Outside Rotary, Chew is active as a local volunteer, having served for nearly three decades with Singapore’s People's Association, a government organization that uses a grassroots approach to promote racial and social harmony among Singapore’s diverse population. For his contributions to Singapore’s communities, Chew was awarded the Public Service Award Medal in 2005 and Public Service Star Medal in 2012 by Singapore’s president. He also serves as a justice of the peace who volunteers in local prisons, chair of two religious organizations, trustee of three national trust organizations, and honorary consul for the Republic of Slovakia in Singapore.

Chew is a recipient of the Service Above Self Award. With his wife, Phyllis, he is a member of the Arch Klumph Society Chair’s Circle.

Thomas A. Gump

General Chair
Rotary International Zones 25B & 29 Institute
Rotary Club of Edina / Morningside Edina, Minnesota
USA

Tom is passionate about growing Rotary Membership through forming new and innovative, cause-based Rotary, Rotaract and satellite clubs. He founded the first ever Rotary Club to serve veterans and co-founded the world’s first Rotary club to end human trafficking. He helped found the Rotary Club of Network for Empowering Women and The Kaleidoscope Rotaract Club, to serve those with Autism and their families. He also helped form the Rotaract eClub for the Environment - the first ever cause-based, international, Rotaract eClub focusing on the environment, which was the innovative club example used by Rotary International General Secretary and CEO John Hewko in his closing remarks at the 2021 Rotary Virtual Convention.

Tom was one of only 20 North American Rotary leaders selected by Rotary International Past President Mark Maloney and Rotary International Membership Staff to participate in a New Club Development Summit and was subsequently named as a Zone 29 Innovative Club Advocate. Tom also serves as an Assistant Rotary Coordinator for membership.

Tom now inspires others around the world and helps them form their own new and innovative Rotary clubs. He speaks regularly on the topic of membership at Rotary club, district, multi-district and zone events and as a breakout panelist at the 2020 and 2021 Rotary International Virtual Conventions. The North American Rotary magazine and other Rotary regional magazines have written about Tom and his district’s new and innovative clubs; and, Tom’s tips for attracting and retaining members have also been featured as part of a cover story.

Tom serves his zone-pair as the General Chair of this year’s Institute and was the Assistant General Chair of last year's virtual Institute. He is also a 2022 Rotary International Assembly Training Leader. Tom loves promoting Rotary and has served his zones (28 & 29) as their Promotion Coordinator for both the Honolulu Virtual and Toronto Rotary International Conventions. He was an Assistant Zone Promotion Coordinator for the Hamburg International Convention.

He is married to his wife Catherine Gump, who is a member of the Rotary Club of Edina, Minnesota, USA. Their son Andrew is involved in the Edina Interact Club. The Gump family is very involved in Rotary Youth Exchange having hosted six long-term exchange students.

Tom serves on the Board of Directors for: Rotary International District 5950, District 5950 Foundation and North Central Presidents-Elect Training Seminar. He formerly served on the Board of Directors for North Star Rotary Youth Exchange. Last year, as District 5950 Governor, Tom led his district to become only the third district in the world to ever have all of its clubs designated as 100% Paul Harris Fellow Clubs; and, in so doing, his district became one of the top overall giving districts in the world. Tom and Catherine are both Major Donors to The Rotary Foundation and members of both its Paul Harris and Bequest Societies.

Tom is a licensed attorney in four states and holds a real estate brokerage license. Tom assists people in buying and selling commercial real estate. In addition to serving Rotary, he serves his local community as Chair of the Edina Community Foundation.

Hsiu-Ming Lin

Trustee 2020-24
Rotary Club of Taipei Tungteh
Taiwan

Hsui-Ming “Frederick” Lin is managing director of Continental Worldwide Enterprises Co. Ltd., a company that designs and integrates satellite communications systems. Lin is active on the boards of organizations outside of Rotary, including as director of the Taipei Lifeline Association.

A Rotarian since 1988, Lin has served Rotary as a regional Rotary Foundation coordinator, Rotary coordinator, RI president’s representative, committee member and chair, and director and treasurer on the RI Board.

He and his wife, Chen-Yi, are members of the Arch Klumph Society. Lin is also a Benefactor of The Rotary Foundation and a Paul Harris Fellow.

Cat Levine

TE TAI TOKERAU TAMARIKI
MENTAL WELLBEING PROJECT
2023 - 2024

The Te Tai Tokerau Tamariki Mental Wellbeing Project will tackle the rise in children's mental illness by providing an Emotional Regulation program, called Think and Be Me, to 60 schools across Te Tai Tokerau (Northland, NZ) during 2023-2024.

The Think and Be Me program, was founded by children's mental wellbeing educator, Cat Levine, alongside a team of experts, and is designed to support the long-term emotional wellbeing of tamariki (children).

Informed by research, the program is underpinned by Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy principles to bring proven mental well-being coping skills out of the counselling rooms, and into the classroom. 

Using a strengths-based approach, students are equipped with the knowledge, understanding, skills and attitudes to manage their emotions in healthy ways, and develop resilience and coping skills.

The project is funded by Rotary International through a Global Grant.

Michael McGovern

Rotary Club of South Portland-Cape Elizabeth
Maine, USA

Michael McGovern is Chair of the Rotary International Polio Plus Committee. In this role, he is the volunteer leader of Rotary’s largest humanitarian project, the global eradication of polio.  Rotary is the spearheading partner of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative and has donated over $2.1 billion to ending polio and has worked with other partners to reduce the number of polio endemic countries from 125 in 1988 to today. Mike also represents Rotary on the Polio Oversight Board.

Michael Lapina

Michael Lapina began his Rotary career in 2005, joining the Rotary Club of Central Melbourne Sunrise, a breakfast club that suited Michael's 9 to 5 job as Executive Coach & Project Director at the National Australia Bank, that was situated across the road from where Rotary met.

Since then, he has held several District Leadership roles, including Team Leader of the Group Vocational Exchange to the Philippines (D3820) in 2017, Artistic Director of the District Conferences in 2017, 2019, and 2022, and Artistic Consultant for the New Generation Service Exchange sending aspiring young Opera professionals to Bayreuth, Germany annually. 

He transferred his membership to the Rotary Club of Wyndham back in 2018, and since then has gone on to be Club President in 2020, Assistant Governor for the Westside Cluster, and is now preparing to take on the office of Rotary Governor for the Rotary District of 9800 in 2024.

Today, he juggles his time between his family (consisting of wife Nina, and three children, Mikey, Alex, and Brianna - all Rotarians), and his busy Rotary life, his professional opera career, video production, and teaching young singing students. 

Jennifer E Jones

Rotary International President 2022 - 2023
Rotary Club of Windsor-Roseland
Ontario, Canada

Jennifer E. Jones, a member of the Rotary Club of Windsor-Roseland, Ontario, Canada, has been nominated to become Rotary International’s president for 2022-23, a groundbreaking selection that will make her the first woman to hold that office in the organization’s 115-year history.

Jones says she sees Rotary’s Action Plan as a catalyst for increasing Rotary’s impact.

“As we reflect upon our new strategic priorities, we could have never envisioned that our ability to adapt would become our North Star during what is inarguably the most profound time in recent history,” Jones said in her vision statement. “Silver linings rise out of the most challenging circumstances. Using metric-driven goals, I will harness this historic landscape to innovate, educate, and communicate opportunities that reflect today’s reality.”

As the first woman to be nominated to be president, Jones understands how important it is to follow through on Rotary’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Statement. 

“I believe that diversity, equity, and inclusion ... begins at the top and for us to realize growth in female membership and members under the age of forty — these demographics need to see their own reflection in leadership,” Jones said. “I will champion double-digit growth in both categories while never losing sight of our entire family.”

Jones is founder and president of Media Street Productions Inc., an award-winning media company in Windsor. She was chair of the board of governors of the University of Windsor and chair of the Windsor-Essex Regional Chamber of Commerce. She has been recognized for her service with the YMCA Peace Medallion, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal, and Wayne State University’s Peacemaker of the Year Award, a first for a Canadian. Jones holds a Doctor of Laws (LL.D.).

A current Rotary Foundation trustee, Jones has been a Rotary member since 1997 and has served Rotary as RI vice president, director, training leader, committee chair, moderator, and district governor. She played a lead role in Rotary’s rebranding effort by serving as chair of the Strengthening Rotary’s Advisory Group. She is the co-chair of the End Polio Now Countdown to History Campaign Committee, which aims to raise $150 million for polio eradication efforts.

Jones recently led the successful #RotaryResponds telethon, which raised critical funds for COVID-19 relief and was viewed by more than 65,000. Jones has also received Rotary International’s Service Above Self Award and The Rotary Foundation Citation for Meritorious Service. She and her husband, Nick Krayacich, are members of The Rotary Foundation’s Arch Klumph Society, Paul Harris Society, and the Bequest Society.