Editor's note: This is the fifth in a series on the six chosen as part of the annual Women Who Mean Business awards by the United Way of Acadiana. For tickets, visit .
When the opportunity came to head up a nonprofit agency, Missy Bienvenu Andrade turned it down.
No way, she said.
Then a family crisis happened. She was still in charge of investor relations at One Acadiana and heavy into the agency’s rebranding as a regional group when a family crisis hit. It was 2017 when her brother, John Bienvenu, was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.
The diagnosis came out of left field — he was only 28 at the time — but it made Andrade go through some reflection about her professional life.
A year later, she entered the nonprofit world and took the CEO position with the Boys & Girls Club of Acadiana. She has since moved to the CEO role with the Community Foundation of Acadiana.
Her brother, meanwhile, survived the cancer. CBS correspondent David Begnaud . He and his wife recently welcomed another baby.
Andrade is one of six women being honored during the United Way of Acadiana’s Women Who Mean Business Awards presented by Home Bank. A banquet will be at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at The Jefferson, 500 Jefferson St.
“It was a very jarring experience,” she said. “I just sort of re-evaluated things and said, ‘I do want to go and learn how to be a CEO and learn how to run a nonprofit.’ I was just discerning at the time: What is my role and purpose here at One Acadiana? Am I going to grow and learn or just stay in the investor relations space?”
She was able to lean on the national structure of the Boys and Girls Club during her time with that job, but it was still an adjustment. It was her first time being responsible for a budget and making sure people got paid and the lights stayed on.
She had a board of directors that, she admits, probably believed in her more than she believed in herself.
“I remember, too, that my lived experience is not the same as the kids we serve and the mission we serve,” Andrade said. “I grappled with that. I just remembered thinking, ‘How am I going to do this job well?’ But I saw it as an opportunity to connect the dots. If I had to say what is one thing I’m really passionate about, it’s about connecting — connecting ideas, connecting people and connecting resources.”
Now at the Community Foundation, she heads up a prominent regional nonprofit with a core purpose to build legacies and improve communities by connecting people to causes they care about.
Stretched over eight parishes, the agency represents all donors and all missions. She’s spent the past 18 months learning about the organization, and the agency is six months into a strategic planning process with an outside firm to make a bigger impact in the region, with education and youth programming as a top priority.
“We don’t have all the answers on how we’re going to do that quite yet,” she said. “But we’re well on our way.”
