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USRowing CEO Amanda Kraus is leaving the sport’s national governing body in April, it was announced in March.
“Leading USRowing has been one of the great honors of my professional life,” Kraus said in an official statement.
News of her departure circulated in the rowing community during the week preceding the announcement after several months of tension and conflict between the CEO and USRowing’s board of directors, which is chaired by Kirsten Feldman.
Minutes of board meetings for this year have not been published. The last published minutes, two pages long, from 2025 use the phrase “discussion ensued” six times, with no specific information.
Feldman, who was elected to the board as the Northeast Region representative, did not return a call or text and email messages seeking comment.
In an email, USRowing Chief Marketing Officer Lizzie Seedhouse wrote: “The organization does not have further comment, and USRowing representatives have all been directed to follow our policy of redirecting all media inquiries to media@usrowing.org.”
“I loved working with her,” said Josy Verdonkschot, The McLane Family Chief High Performance Officer at USRowing, who was hired by Kraus in 2022. “We always functioned as a team. I got full freedom to execute things the way I wanted. She did a great job.”
Verdonkschot said the board has assured him that his Olympic program will continue as planned. The United States hosts the LA2028 Olympic Games from July 14 to 30, 2028, including the premier of the new Olympic rowing sport Beach Sprints.
Kraus led USRowing to record revenue—almost $19.6 million in 2024, with a surplus of $489,000, according to the organization’s annual report. In 2019, USRowing’s income was $12 million, which fell to $7.1 million in the Covid year of 2020, before Kraus was hired in the summer of 2020.
On the water, USRowing under Kraus was less successful, winning Olympic events only twice across five senior World Rowing Championships (women’s four in 2025) and two Olympic Games (men’s four in 2024).
During her tenure, membership was essentially flat at about 75,000. USRowing called 2024 the “second highest year in history for organizational membership.”
The national governing body signed an all-time high of 286 sanctioned regattas in 2024 but lost collegiate and scholastic association members when it tried to force schools into safety and liability agreements.
Kraus’s total compensation in 2024 was $326,515, according to USRowing’s most recent tax filings.
The board intends to appoint an interim CEO and launch an immediate search for a permanent successor.
