Lisa Hamilton Named Next President & CEO of the Annie E. Casey Foundation

The Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion Board of Trustees today announced that Lisa Hamil­ton will become the Foundation’s next pres­i­dent and chief exec­u­tive offi­cer effec­tive Jan. 1, 2019. Hamil­ton is the Foundation’s exec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent and chief pro­gram offi­cer. She will suc­ceed Patrick McCarthy, who announced his retire­ment after 25 years at the Foun­da­tion, near­ly nine as its top leader.

“We are for­tu­nate to have some­one with Lisa’s expe­ri­ence and vision step into this impor­tant role,” said Michael Eskew, chair of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees. ​“Lisa is an enor­mous­ly tal­ent­ed leader who brings a deep under­stand­ing of the needs of kids and fam­i­lies, and she is the ide­al leader to build on the ter­rif­ic accom­plish­ments of Patrick McCarthy. Her abil­i­ty to use research and data to devel­op inno­v­a­tive strate­gies, and to part­ner with com­mu­ni­ties and deci­sion mak­ers to spread what works, will enable the Foun­da­tion to help all chil­dren real­ize their potential.”

Hamil­ton joined the Foun­da­tion in 2011 as vice pres­i­dent of exter­nal affairs. In six years, she trans­formed the unit into a pow­er­house for data, pol­i­cy advo­ca­cy, com­mu­ni­ca­tions and lead­er­ship devel­op­ment. She led the cre­ation of Casey’s first Race for Results report in 2014, which mea­sured how chil­dren from dif­fer­ent racial and eth­nic back­grounds were far­ing on key mile­stones from birth to adult­hood and served as a spring­board for efforts to pro­mote equi­ty and inclu­sion for chil­dren, fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties of color.

Hamilton’s appoint­ment comes in the 70^th year of the Casey Foun­da­tion, a nation­al phil­an­thropy based in Bal­ti­more that is ded­i­cat­ed to cre­at­ing a brighter future for all chil­dren in the Unit­ed States by devel­op­ing solu­tions to strength­en fam­i­lies, build paths to eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ty and trans­form com­mu­ni­ties into safer and health­i­er places to live, work and grow. The Foun­da­tion was cre­at­ed in 1948 by Jim Casey, the founder of UPS, and his siblings.

Last year, Hamil­ton was appoint­ed exec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent and chief pro­gram offi­cer, which gave her broad over­sight of Casey’s pro­gram invest­ments, includ­ing efforts to strength­en the social sec­tor and encour­age the take-up of effec­tive strate­gies through pol­i­cy and data advo­ca­cy, lead­er­ship devel­op­ment and research.

Pri­or to join­ing the Foun­da­tion, Hamil­ton enjoyed a 14-year career at UPS. She held posi­tions in cor­po­rate tax and pub­lic affairs before advanc­ing to pres­i­dent of the UPS Foun­da­tion, where she direct­ed glob­al phil­an­thropic and vol­un­teer pro­grams. She ulti­mate­ly served as vice pres­i­dent of cor­po­rate pub­lic rela­tions, over­see­ing glob­al media rela­tions, rep­u­ta­tion man­age­ment and exec­u­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tions for the company.

Hamil­ton serves on the boards of the Bal­ti­more Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion, Case­book PBC and Striv­e­To­geth­er. She served as a trustee of the Casey Foun­da­tion from 2008 to 2011.

She is a native of Atlanta who earned a bachelor’s degree in com­merce from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia and a law degree from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michigan.

“For near­ly eight years, I’ve been able to help change the odds for young peo­ple all over the coun­try,” Hamil­ton said. ​“Along with our part­ners and grantees, we have made great progress in some areas, but we have so much more to accom­plish to ensure sys­tems, poli­cies and insti­tu­tions are designed to con­nect chil­dren and their fam­i­lies with oppor­tu­ni­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly those who have been denied oppor­tu­ni­ty for gen­er­a­tions. I look for­ward to build­ing on our efforts to score vic­to­ries for chil­dren when I step into this new role.”

Hamil­ton suc­ceeds McCarthy, who focused the Foundation’s work and strate­gies more sharply on the three pri­ma­ry areas of fam­i­ly, oppor­tu­ni­ty and com­mu­ni­ty, bring­ing more uni­ty and clar­i­ty to Casey’s wide-rang­ing invest­ments. Dur­ing his tenure, he declared racial and eth­nic equi­ty and inclu­sion were Foun­da­tion pri­or­i­ties and cen­tral to advanc­ing Casey’s mis­sion to ensure all chil­dren are able to real­ize their poten­tial. Over the past sev­er­al years, he has guid­ed the Foun­da­tion through a num­ber of changes in its work and as an orga­ni­za­tion, includ­ing greater invest­ments in proven pro­grams and prac­tices and the expan­sion of efforts focused on pub­lic sys­tem reform and com­mu­ni­ty development.

Eskew said Hamil­ton is the ide­al leader to build on those efforts and chart new ter­ri­to­ry. She led the devel­op­ment of a strat­e­gy to expand the Foundation’s lead­er­ship pro­grams, focused greater atten­tion on improv­ing child well-being in the South and South­west, led efforts to strength­en and mea­sure pro­gram­mat­ic effec­tive­ness and increased the engage­ment of fam­i­lies, young peo­ple and com­mu­ni­ties in the Foun­da­tion’s work.