Ben Jealous, who joined the environmental group in 2023, has clashed with some employees and the organization’s union.
Ben Jealous, the executive director of the Sierra Club, is on leave as of Friday afternoon, the organization confirmed, after less than three years leading the environmental nonprofit group.
The Sierra Club has announced several rounds of layoffs since he joined and this move comes after simmering tensions among local chapters and complaints from a group of managers as well as its union.
Loren Blackford will run the organization as interim executive director, according to the Sierra Club website.
Last month, a group of more than 100 employees sent a letter to the group’s board of directors expressing concerns that Mr. Jealous was not prepared to shepherd the 132-year-old organization through a second Trump administration.
“Mr. Jealous failed to articulate any concrete strategy or theory of change for how we will effectively fight the Trump administration’s dismantling of decades of hard-won environmental protections,” they wrote. They also accused him of failing to gain the trust of funders and said they felt the Sierra Club has been in a “downward spiral.”
A spokesman for the Sierra Club said the organization did not comment on personnel matters and declined to specify the nature of the leave. Mr. Jealous did not immediately respond to request for comment.