Global Transformation and Innovation Expert Tapped to Lead Aspen Institute’s Community of Global Leaders
Contact: Jon Purves
Senior Media Relations Manager
The Aspen Institute
Jon.Purves@aspeninstitute.org
Washington, DC November 10, 2021 – The Aspen Institute announced today that Dar Vanderbeck will join the Aspen Institute as the Vice President of the Aspen Global Leadership Network (AGLN), effective November 22, 2021. In this role, she will focus on strengthening the AGLN, a growing international community of people and partners committed to lifelong, values-based leadership, and bring its impact to larger scale and significance.
“Dar is an innovative and strategic leader, and will bring fresh perspectives, global experience, and authentic and inclusive leadership to the Aspen Global Leadership Network,” said Dan Porterfield, President and CEO of the Aspen Institute.
“In Dar, we have found a community-minded leader with substantial experience in bringing innovation and transformation to major global organizations. She is an ideal leader to head the AGLN and scale the impact of our Fellows,” said Margot Pritzker, Aspen Institute Trustee and Chair of the Leadership Committee.
“I am thrilled to be joining the Aspen Institute, especially at this critical time in history,” said Vanderbeck. “Now, more than ever, leaders must show their moral courage and work across differences to solve our common problems. This is already happening within the Aspen Global Leadership Network, and I am excited to work with our Fellows and partners to bring values-based leadership, and values-based solutions, to scale.”
“Dar has a proven track record and demonstrated commitment to equity, social justice, and values-based leadership,” said David Langstaff, Executive Vice President of Leadership Programs at the Aspen Institute. “Her inclusive and open-hearted approach to working across sectors, cultures, ideologies, and beliefs to bring about mission-driven results is a shining example of the kind of leadership our world needs today.”
Prior to joining the Aspen Institute, Dar served as the first Chief Innovation Officer at CARE USA where she was responsible for driving the transformation and leading the creation of the 75-year-old organization’s global innovation strategy. During her tenure, she built a team to discover, test, and launch new business models that enabled CARE to achieve its mission. Previously, Dar was Managing Director for Teach for America’s Innovation and Values-Based Leadership team, tasked with building TFA alumni cohorts across the country to help drive values-based innovation.
Dar is also a founder of several organizations, most recently Canopy Collective, an organization with a mission to end and heal from racialized violence by building a transnational coalition of people who have advanced truth-telling and reparative justice in their countries, and the Pale Blue Dot Fund, a philanthropic mezzanine fund focused on climate justice. She co-founded Imperative, a technology platform that unlocks purpose in the workplace, and has held positions at McKinsey & Company, and USAID, where she worked at the Office of Transition Initiatives in Afghanistan.
Dar began her career in Kenya working with the grassroots organization MUHURI (Muslims for Human Rights) and co-founding the Roosevelt Campus Network, which sought to engage young people in policymaking. She has served on the Boards of MicroVest Holdings, CARE Social Ventures, Rhize and Chrysalis Ltd – Sri Lanka, and as an advisor for Impactive LLC, among others. She is also a death doula and a mentor for the Unreasonable Institute.
Dar comes from a large, multiracial, multinational family and grew up in New Jersey. She has lived in Lewiston, ME; Washington, DC; Atlanta, GA; Oakland, CA; Nairobi, Kenya; Bangkok, Thailand; Cairo, Egypt; and Kandahar, Afghanistan. Dar earned her B.A from Bates College in a self-designed interdisciplinary major called Political Economies in Transition. She is currently finishing a Masters of Divinity in Social Transformation from the Pacific School of Religion (PSR) in Berkeley, CA and her interreligious chaplaincy degree. Dar is based in Los Angeles, CA where her husband Andy is a hospitalist pediatrician at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA).
About the Aspen Institute and Aspen Global Leadership Network
The Aspen Global Leadership Network (AGLN) is a growing, worldwide community of more than 3,000 high-integrity, entrepreneurial leaders from over 60 countries who share a commitment to values-based leadership and to using their creativity, energy and resources to tackle the foremost societal challenges of our times. Fellows convene annually at the AGLN’s flagship event, the Resnick Aspen Action Forum. For more information, visit www.aspeninstitute.org/agln.
Aspen Institute is a global nonprofit organization committed to realizing a free, just, and equitable society. Founded in 1949, the Institute drives change through dialogue, leadership, and action to help solve the most important challenges facing the United States and the world. Headquartered in Washington, DC, the Institute has a campus in Aspen, Colorado, and an international network of partners. For more information, visit www.aspeninstitute.org.
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