Cecilia Conrad is that rare individual who can do more work than multiple high-level executives combined, makes it look easy and charms in the process. She is CEO of Lever for Change and Managing Director of the Fellows (Genius Grants) and 100&Change programs. at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
As a trustee of the Poetry Foundation, which recently came under extreme duress in response to the Black Lives Matter movement, she volunteered to chair the Equity Oversight Committee and calmed significant turbulence by promising thoughtful, impactful change.
She also serves or has served as a trustee for a long and impressive list of other institutions. She’s a very rare breed of economist – Black, Wellesley and Stanford trained, with significant corporate, government and academic experience and multiple awards and publications earned before joining the foundation world – sitting at a strategic intersection for these challenging times. And she’s the perfect woman for the opportunity, as this Q&A hopefully helps you understand too.