Maria Laura Acebal is the Interim President and CEO of the Aspen Institute (through October 2026). She also serves as the Institute’s Executive Vice President for Strategy and Corporate Secretary, with responsibility for two areas central to the Institute’s strength and sustainability.
As EVP for Strategy, she leads a team that helps connect and strengthen the Institute’s many programs and departments — stewarding enterprise-wide strategic planning, building institutional capacity, and creating shared resources that support teams across the organization. As Corporate Secretary, she leads the Institute’s governance and board operations and engages trustees in advancing its mission. Together, these roles help shape how the Institute sets direction, makes decisions, and builds for the future.
Before joining the Aspen Institute, Maria held executive leadership roles in the nonprofit sector, including at Ashoka, a global pioneer in social entrepreneurship. She also served as CEO of the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network (now FARE), the largest food allergy nonprofit in the country. While there, she helped initiate the drafting and advocacy efforts that contributed to the passage of the School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act, signed into law by President Obama in 2013. Earlier in her career, she worked in business strategy at McKinsey & Company and then-start-up Cvent, and as a litigation attorney at Williams & Connolly.
Maria earned her J.D. from Yale Law School and her B.A. in Mathematics, summa cum laude, from Duke University, where she was an A.B. Duke Scholar. Born in La Plata, Argentina, she lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and three children.
