The selection of Elisabeth Mason and Melissa Morales Monárrez further aligns Public Allies’ board make-up with its strategy for growth and expansion
MILWAUKEE, Wis – Public Allies is pleased to announce the addition of Elisabeth Mason and Melissa Morales Monárrez to its National Board of Directors.
Elisabeth Mason is a social entrepreneur, philanthropic executive, and international lawyer. She is the Founding Director of the Stanford Poverty & Technology Lab, the first lab dedicated to leveraging the data and technology revolution to create new, lasting, and low-cost solutions to poverty and inequality in the United States. A native of East Harlem, Elisabeth was named “New Yorker of the Year” in 2015 for her groundbreaking work fighting poverty, and her work was recognized as “Top Ten in the World in Social Good” by Fast Company. Her impactful work has also earned her two White House Social Innovation Awards.
“Public Allies has a vision that speaks to the root cause of many of the inequities that I have dedicated my life to addressing,” says Mason. “Their quiet innovation and belief in the wisdom of collective leadership is what drew me to this organization above others. I am grateful for the opportunity to be a part of this team of dedicated leaders.”
Melissa Morales Monárrez’s career spans the nonprofit and corporate sectors, where she has focused on creating inclusive ecosystems that enable economic opportunity and equitable outcomes for marginalized groups. She is currently at Google, where she led partnerships for the US and Latin America for the Next Billion Users organization, an internal incubator that built early stage products to address the unmet needs of users in emerging economies. Previously, she worked at Vital Voices Global Partnerships, where she managed capacity-building programs for women entrepreneurs throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.
“I am keenly aware that without significant and intentional reimagination and redesign, organizations and systems across sectors will continue to debilitate marginalized leaders,” says Morales Monárrez. “Now is the time to ask ourselves what kind of values we want our future leaders to have. Now is the time to do the work to reframe what innovative leadership looks like and where it comes from, something Public Allies has been doing for over three decades.”
As Public Allies looks ahead to its next thirty years, it reaffirms its commitment to its Allies, Alumni, and partners, while launching a new Strategic Impact Framework to address the specific needs of emerging and ascending BIPOC leaders. Public Allies will continue its work to flood the civic sector with diverse, proximate leaders while supporting them to take the leadership roles and the actions necessary to facilitate change.
“The selection of Elisabeth Mason and Melissa Morales Monárrez further aligns our board make-up with our vision for growth and expansion. In our selection we center our values, equity-centered and collective leadership capabilities, and diversity of identity, perspectives, knowledge, and networks,” says Chanda Smith Baker, Chair of the Board of Public Allies. “I welcome Elisabeth and Melissa into the Public Allies community, confident that they understand what it takes to achieve lasting and transformative impact, and grateful for their leadership.”
About Public Allies
Public Allies is a 501c3 national nonprofit committed to advancing social justice and racial equity by engaging and activating the leadership of all people. Their mission is to create a just and equitable society and the diverse leadership to sustain it. For over 30 years, Public Allies has been a pioneer in recruiting and developing equity-focused change-makers. In this time, they have built a powerful network of more than 10,000 proximate leaders who bridge races, ethnicities, socioeconomic levels, and cultures. Holding a range of roles across sectors, these leaders reflect system re-designers, policy shapers, builders of inclusive cultures, and transformers of cultures who center equity, diversity and the values of collective leadership.