Cecilia Conrad, PhD is a trail-blazing foundation, academic, and thought leader devoted to getting transformational funding behind inspiring ideas to solve the world’s biggest problems. She is the CEO of Lever for Change (LFC), which connects donors and creative thinkers with bold ideas. A change-maker committed to expanding the world of philanthropy by driving large-scale funding to lesser known, more diverse ideas and problem-solvers, Dr. Conrad is LFC's first leader and she led the team that thought up its existence and mission. Under her leadership, she has led Lever for Change to unlock $1 billion in philanthropic capital to scale high-impact solutions. She is also Senior Advisor for the MacArthur Fellows (aka Genius Grants) and 100&Change programs at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, where she spent 9 years as a Managing Director focused on philanthropic work in 50 countries. While there, she steered the cross-Foundation team that created the idea for 100&Change, an open-call challenge that awards a grant of $100 million dollars to help solve critical problems of our time, inspiring the offshoot that is now LFC.Dr. Conrad comes from academia where she had a 31-year career as an administrator and professor at Pomona College, Scripps College, Barnard College and Duke University. She began her career as an economist, blazing a new trail in a male-dominated field where she was typically the only Black, female professor. She was also an economist at the Federal Trade Commission and a visiting scholar at The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.A curious thinker committed to life-long learning, Dr. Conrad’s research is about the impacts of race and gender on economic status. A prolific writer and experienced editor, her work is in countless books, publications and academic journals. Deeply devoted to advancing diversity, equity and inclusion, she is a mentor and advisor to many, has been honored with several awards and holds two honorary doctorates in addition to a B.A. from Wellesley College and a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University.
