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. Key FCNY programs include the Cash Flow Loan Program, The Partnership Program, and the Sloan Public Service Awards. Prior to the Fund Lisette was the director of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies and a full clinical professor at NYU Steinhardt where she co-led the design and implementation of a new doctoral program in educational leadership and innovation as well as taught organizational theory and behavior and educational policy analysis. Lisette remains an instructor with NYU, overseeing doctoral students and supporting research initiatives. Lisette holds a BA from Brooklyn College, a BA/MA from the University of Oxford, an MPA 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, and a fellow at the Rockefeller Institute of Government.

For over 25 years, Lisette has served in a variety of cross sector leadership positions. She is an experienced social entrepreneur, public sector leader and scholar. Lisette founded Lingo Ventures which is focused on growth, talent recruitment/retention, and change management. Lisette served as the Belle Zeller Distinguished Visiting Professor in Public Policy at the City University of New York at Brooklyn College. Lisette has also held senior leadership positions in municipal and federal government. She most recently served as an Obama appointee on the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics, where she co-chaired the higher education subcommittee and supported the production of two reports and convenings.

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. Her interest in workforce and education led to her dissertation on the relationship between student work and school roles, for which she received the 2016 Dissertation of the Year Award by the (NCSD – AACC). Her areas of interest include community colleges, college pathways, workforce and education partnerships which are all represented her co-authored new book: Working to Learn: Disrupting the Divide between College and Career Pathways for Young People. Her board affiliations include the Edwin Gould Foundation, AVID, The Education Trust, NewSchools Venture Fund, Jobs for the Future (JFF), and the Trustee of the New York Public Library.

As part of her fellowship, Dr. Nieves is exploring new career pathways that better match the needs of the workforce with the incorporation of skills development in secondary and postsecondary education for minority, low-income, first-generation, full-time community college students in New York State.