A nonprofit leader whose career has been devoted to supporting and uplifting diverse voices and communities across the country.
President
Traci Lester
(she/her)
About
Traci Lester is a nonprofit leader whose career has been devoted to supporting and uplifting diverse voices and communities across the country. She has held several executive roles including Executive Director of The Center for Fiction, a national literary organization; Executive Director of National Dance Institute (NDI), an arts education organization; and Executive Director of Reach Out and Read of Greater New York, an early literacy and school readiness program. Most recently, she was a program consultant to the Hawthornden Foundation.
She is the recipient of the American Association of University Women’s Selected Professions Fellowship, the National Association of Health Service Executive’s Community Service Award, and was named to TheGrio’s 100 List as an African-American history maker and industry leader in the field of education. The Manhattan Borough President recognized her as a Cultural Leader in New York City. She is a member of the American Society for Public Administrators Pi Alpha Alpha Honor Society. She was also a Multicultural Fellow in Urban Affairs at The San Francisco Foundation.
Traci currently co-chairs the Board of Directors of The New York City Arts in Education Roundtable and serves on the MPA Program Advisory Board for San Francisco State University’s School of Public Affairs & Civic Engagement. In addition, she is an adjunct faculty lecturer at the Austin W. Marxe School of Public and International Affairs at Baruch College, City University of New York. She also provides capacity-building support to constituents of The Nonprofit Professionals of Color Collective and The Grunin Foundation.
She earned a BSFS from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, an MBA from Rutgers University, an MPA from San Francisco State University, along with a Certificate in Nonprofit Management from Columbia University’s Institute for Nonprofit Management. She is currently completing her Doctorate in Education at New York University.
Traci will start her new role at TOA on January 21, 2025.
