Washington Center for Equitable Growth CEO Joins Biden-Harris Transition Team, Search for New CEO Underway

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 11, 2020
Contact: Elena Waskey, ewaskey@equitablegrowth.org

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Washington Center for Equitable Growth, a nonprofit research and grantmaking institution with a mission to accelerate research on how economic inequality affects growth and stability, announced today that its President and CEO Heather Boushey has resigned effective Friday, December 11. Boushey will immediately join President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President–elect Kamala Harris’s transition team as a future member of the Council of Economic Advisers.

“Heather has built a remarkable organization, taking it from a start-up to one of the most respected economic think tanks in Washington, D.C.,” said John Podesta, who serves as chair of the board and co-founded the organization in 2013. “Her leadership, substantive knowledge, and deep understanding of the effects of growing inequality on growth will be missed at Equitable Growth, but she will be a tremendous asset to the Biden-Harris administration.”

“I’m incredibly honored to have worked side by side with so many dedicated colleagues and partners throughout the past seven years at Equitable Growth,” said Boushey. “Together we have built a strong organization to support new scholarship and elevate evidence-backed research that can help tell a new story about how the economy works and how it can benefit all Americans.”

Under Boushey’s leadership, Equitable Growth has grown into an organization with more than 45 employees and more than 300 grantees who help answer the most pressing questions on how inequality in all its forms affects growth and stability. Since its founding, the Washington Center for Equitable Growth has sought to connect scholars to the policymaking community, engaging them in a new set of questions around the most important economic trends of our time.

Rising economic inequality across families and firms, and the lack of progress on longstanding inequities by race, ethnicity, and gender, continues to generate new and pressing questions for economics to confront. Through engaging deeply with the academic community, Equitable Growth seeks to understand what these trends mean for economic growth and stability and to help the policymaking community take steps that will foster improved living standards across the whole economy. That complexity, combined with the organization’s dedication to building connectivity among disparate groups of academics and policymakers, enables the organization to make a real and lasting impact within the academic and policymaking communities.

The Washington Center for Equitable Growth has retained a national executive recruitment firm and formed a committee that has begun executing its search for the new President and CEO. During the search process, the board of directors will work closely with Vice President Casey Schoeneberger and the senior leadership team to execute on the organization’s work, support staff, and achieve Equitable Growth’s objectives and key results.

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The Washington Center for Equitable Growth is a nonprofit research and grantmaking organization dedicated to advancing evidence-backed ideas and policies that promote strong, stable, and broad-based economic growth. For more information, see www.equitablegrowth.org and follow us on Twitter and Facebook @equitablegrowth.