The Marguerite Casey Foundation Board of Directors is excited to announce that Carmen Rojas, Ph.D. will become the new president and CEO of the foundation in 2020. She will lead the foundation in pursuit of our mission to help low-income families strengthen their voice and mobilize their communities in order to achieve a more just and equitable society for all.
Carmen will be joining the foundation from The Workers Lab, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, which she founded in 2014. Under her leadership, The Workers Lab has become the nation’s leading funder and supporter of new ideas about increasing worker power in the United States. She leaves the organization after growing the budget 500 percent and building a team that is majority first-generation queer people of color.
Prior to building The Workers Lab, Carmen was the acting director of collective impact at Living Cities. She helped 22 of the largest foundations and financial institutions in the world to invest in improving economic opportunity for low-income people. From 2008 to 2011, Carmen was the director of strategic programs at the Mitchell Kapor Foundation, where she oversaw the foundation’s Green Access and Civic Engagement programs. Alongside her work at the foundation, Carmen also taught in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley.
Carmen is a nationally recognized leader in economic and worker justice and is widely published. She has served on several governing boards, including Marguerite Casey Foundation, General Service Foundation, Neighborhood Funders Group, Workers Benefit Fund, and is on the Advisory Board of JOLT Texas. She has also received numerous leadership appointments and honors, including the Future of Work Task Force for the State of New Jersey and Federal Reserve of San Francisco’s Community Advisory Council.
She holds a Doctorate in City and Regional Planning from the University of California at Berkeley. She is a Fulbright Scholar and was awarded a Human Rights and Department of Housing and Urban Development Fellowship during her graduate work.
