Lisette Nieves

Lisette Nieves

2015 Ricardo Salinas Scholar, Ricardo Salinas Scholarship

Lisette Nieves is currently the President of the Fund for the City of New York (FCNY), an institution charged with developing and helping to implement innovations in policy, programs, practices and technology in order to advance the functioning of government and nonprofit organizations in New York City and beyond. Lisette is also a Distinguished Clinical Professor with NYU, overseeing doctoral students and supporting research initiatives in the Doctoral Program Leadership and Innovation which she co-founded.   

Lisette has also served in a variety of cross sector leadership positions. She is an experienced social entrepreneur, public sector leader. She has supported social entrepreneurs, educators and organizational leaders nationally through her work with Lingo Ventures. Lisette has also held senior leadership positions in municipal government at the Dept. for Youth and Community Development in the Bloomberg administration and the Corporation for National Service in the Clinton Administration.    

Lisette also served as the founding Executive Director of Year Up NY, an innovative workforce development program, where in the span of five years she grew the organization from a $250,000 seed grant to a $6 million operation with over 20 corporate partnerships and serves as a policy expert youth workforce and education.    

Lisette is a proud first-generation college student that received her B.A. from Brooklyn College, B.A./M.A. from the University of Oxford, an M.P.A. from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and a doctorate with distinction in Higher Education Management at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a Truman Scholar, Rhodes Scholar, Aspen Pahara Fellow, 2020 Richard P. Nathan Public Policy Fellow and a 2021 Top 100 Women We Admire in New York State.  

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