2024 Most Influential Women: Cecelia Havens

Noting greatness can mean vastly different things to different people, Cecelia Havens says individuals can only measure their success against who they were yesterday. As the project and compliance director at AIDS Project of the Ozarks, Havens wakes up daily with the goal of being better than the day before.

“That goal is universal to both my personal and professional life,” she says, noting she’s worked since 2007 for the Springfield nonprofit, which provides health services and education to the community with an emphasis on underserved and marginalized populations.

“The secret is to continue to work towards the goal with fierce commitment, knowing that you may and will fail repeatedly. Failure is rarely fatal, and often leads to creativity and growth in ways we could never have achieved without failing first.”

Serving in her current role since 2015, Havens started as development director at APO, which serves 29 counties in southwest Missouri.

The organization in 2022 received approval from the Health Resources and Services Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to become a federally qualified health center look-alike. Havens says her work helping APO accomplish that goal is her proudest professional achievement to date, adding it allows the organization to better serve the community and offer services to more people in need.

“This accomplishment has been many grueling years in the making,” she says, adding it took nearly all her focus and attention for the better part of five years. “This achievement stems from a pipe dream that shifted into a tangible plan.”

APO Executive Director Lynne Meyerkord says Havens became involved as a volunteer for the nonprofit prior to 2007 after losing a close friend to AIDS. Meyerkord credits Havens with elevating awareness of APO in the community, raising over $1.6 million in her previous role as development director.

“Her quiet, thorough, measured leadership has been instrumental in growing our medical clinic client base from 450 to over 1,600 over the past five years,” Meyerkord says.

Building collaborative infrastructures is another focus for Havens, noting APO teams with numerous community organizations, such as Burrell Behavioral Health to provide mental health support services and case management to those with HIV, and Harmony House, to offer health and wellness services to women in need.

“Through these collaborations we have built a network of wonderful agencies that help us achieve our mission and we, in turn, help them achieve their missions,” Havens says. “One of the most successful things we can do is recognize and embrace the expertise of other agencies and work with them to bring about change.”