Roosevelt Institute Names Felicia Wong New President & CEO

New York, NY: The Board of Directors of the Roosevelt Institute has announced that Felicia Wong will become the organization’s new President and CEO.

Wong comes to the Institute from the Democracy Alliance and brings strong relationships with an extensive network of progressive leaders, intellectuals, and philanthropists. She is a leading expert on the ways that nonprofit organizations can create lasting social change, and has held executive management positions in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.
 
“Felicia’s talents, energy, and experience make her the ideal person to lead our work forward, both in celebrating the legacy of my grandparents, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, and in reinvigorating their values in contemporary public debate,” said Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, Chair of the Board.
 
At the Roosevelt Institute, Wong will be responsible for all of the organization’s program areas, which support its three-pronged mission – reanimating progressive thought, developing the next generation of progressive leaders, and preserving the Roosevelt legacy.
 
For the last five years, Wong has led the development of the Democracy Alliance’s strategic investment portfolio, which is composed of select leading progressive organizations. She pioneered the Alliance’s efforts to assess and increase the policy and political impact of its investments. Wong also has significant private-sector experience, having run operations and product development at a venture-funded education services company. She served as a White House Fellow in the Office of the Attorney General and was a political appointee in the Office of the Secretary of the Navy. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. Her doctoral dissertation on the role of race and framing in K-12 public education politics received the 2000 American Political Science Association award in Race, Ethnicity, and Politics.
 
“We live in a historic moment that calls for the bold ideas and exceptional leaders that the Roosevelt Institute supports, filling a gap both in the progressive movement and in American civic life,” Wong said. “The Institute has a tremendous opportunity to help craft a 21st century economics and politics that work for all. We will build on what we have already achieved and continue to integrate the valuable work going on across all of our program areas.”
 
Wong succeeds Andrew Rich, the former President and CEO of the Roosevelt Institute, who was appointed Executive Secretary of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation and began work there in October.
 
“We are so thankful to Andy Rich for his strong leadership and bold vision, which was critical to the reinvigoration of the Institute’s work,” Anne Roosevelt said.
 
In the past three years, the Roosevelt Institute has undergone significant expansion. It continues to be the non-profit partner to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, and has built on that by expanding and strengthening its policy and leadership development programs.
 
The Roosevelt Institute | Campus Network now connects more than 10,000 students on more than 100 college campuses to programs that engage them in discussing progressive values, empower them to develop public policy, and promote their ideas to policymakers at all levels of government.
 
The Institute’s Four Freedoms Center, launched in 2009, is today a leading national think tank with a number of renowned Fellows, including former Chief Economist to the Senate Banking Committee Rob Johnson and Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. The Center develops more progressive paradigms for the relationship between democracy and capitalism.
 
Most recently, the Institute launched the Roosevelt Institute | Pipeline, a new way for young professionals to connect to the progressive movement that empowers them with opportunities to be public voices for local change in communities around the country.
 
Major supporters include: The Arca Foundation; The Atlantic Philanthropies; Bernard and Audre Rapoport Foundation; Bohemian Foundation; The Ford Foundation; The Kerr Foundation; The Nathan Cummings Foundation; National Academy for Social Insurance; The New World Foundation; Robert R. McCormick Foundation; Rockefeller Family Fund; The Rodel Foundations; Stoneman Family Foundation; SVM Foundation; Wallace Global Fund; and many generous individual donors.
 
Wong is helping to guide the Institute’s work and will join the Institute full-time in March 2012.
 
“The Roosevelt Institute has become one of the leading progressive organizations in the country,” said Wong. “I am thrilled to help continue its growth and ensure the legacy of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.”
 
For more information, see Felicia Wong's bio or contact Glen Weiner at 212-444-9610 or gweiner@rooseveltinstitute.org.