Clinical precision: Nonprofit executive confronts, overcomes stern leadership test

For good, ill or somewhere in between, timing is everything — a fact of which Jennifer Yeagley, who became CEO of the St. Petersburg Free Clinic on Feb. 28, is now all too aware. 

Yeagley, 44, joined the organization two weeks before the coronavirus pandemic would strain the clinic’s resources to the breaking point. Demand at its food pantry shot up by 300%. The majority of its 450 volunteer staff members, many of whom are retirees, had to quarantine and were unable to work. (The clinic, founded in 1970, receives most of its funding from private donors and has 60 paid staff members. It has $19.4 million in annual revenue, according to its most recent tax filing.)