Chief Financial Officer and Director, Finance and Administration Group
Paul Kirst provides financial and business leadership to Search Institute. In this role, he is responsible for directing the organization’s financial strategy, planning, and forecasts as well as financial planning, record keeping, and reporting. He also oversees the organization’s financial, human resource, and technology staff.
When he came to Search Institute in 2001, he brought 28 years of financial and business experience in both the for-profit and nonprofit sectors. For 18 years, he worked in the business sector, which included serving as Chief Financial Officer of Strout Plastics, a $20 million manufacturing company; as controller of a $14 million printing company; as the sales and marketing director of a printing company; and in public accounting.
In the nonprofit world, he served as business manager of Parent Child Center, an early childhood development program located in Omaha, Nebraska; a rural hospital and nursing home administrator in Henderson, Nebraska; the administrator of a community development program in Bolivia; and as regional director of a refugee relief program in Honduras during the Nicaraguan Civil War.
Kirst has a bachelor of science degree in business and economics from Wayne State College in Wayne, Nebraska. He has a Certified Public Accountant certificate.
