Longtime Girl Scouts of Hawaii CEO Shari Chang has resigned following the completion of the Girl Scout STEM Center for Excellence at Camp Paumalu on the North Shore of Oahu.

Chang, who had been CEO for the past nine years, announced her resignation last week to the board of directors and staff and will return to her marketing consulting company where she plans to expand her reach into nonprofit strategy and fundraising.

Board member Michele Saito, a former Girl Scout and Girl Scout troop leader, was named interim CEO while the organization looks for a new executive.

“With the completion of the Girl Scouts of Hawaii STEM Center, and as a steppingstone to the next phase of my career, I have resigned my position as CEO of Girl Scouts of Hawaii to return to my marketing consulting company where I plan to expand my reach into nonprofit strategy and fundraising,” Chang said.

In addition to the STEM Center, during her tenure Chang brought and implemented numerous innovative partnerships both locally and nationally, extended programming for STEM, financial literacy, life skills and outdoor activities, and improved camp facilities on three islands. Under Chang’s leadership, Girl Scouts of Hawaii was one of only 29 councils nationally to receive an $800,000 donation from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott.

Lori Teranishi, board chair of the Girl Scouts of Hawaii said, “Shari has helped the Hawaii Council in so many ways, and we are thankful for the STEM Center, which she planned and made a reality, that will benefit Girls Scouts and the larger community for generations to come.”

Girl Scouts of Hawaii is the oldest council west of the Mississippi and was started in 1917 by a Kamehameha School for Girls teacher, Florence Lowe, who organized the first Girl Scout troop in Honolulu just five years after the Girl Scouts was founded.