Effective July 5, 2023, Kathryn Epps Roberson will serve as President and CEO of The Fund, filling the role previously held by Donna Frisby-Greenwood who served as President and CEO of The Fund since 2015.
Roberson has dedicated her career to maximizing resources for the betterment of the city of Philadelphia and all Philadelphians, and brings unmatched experience in coalition-building and stakeholder engagement and an entrepreneurial background to The Fund.
Since 2018, she has served as the first Executive Director of the Hire! Philly Coalition, an organization founded to forge public-private partnerships to address regional workforce development issues and connect Philadelphians to employment. Roberson played a critical role in engaging stakeholders across the public and private sector around addressing Philadelphia’s talent priorities, and was instrumental in implementing the coalition’s vision and strategy to align the advocacy, assets, and interests of local employers to support regional workforce development efforts and provide economic opportunities to all Philadelphians. In her time at Hire! Philly, Roberson was also responsible for launching PropelPHL, a digital platform and the only one-stop-shop in the Greater Philadelphia region to connect and foster collaboration between job seekers, employers, and workforce development organizations.
Roberson also served as the founder of AEC Partners, a Philadelphia-based marketing consulting firm that partnered with organizations such as The Malcolm Jenkins Foundation, Big Brothers Big Sisters Independence Region, Urban Affairs Coalition, Salvation Army of Greater Philadelphia, and the African American Museum in Philadelphia and more to raise over $8 million collectively.
Since 2015, The Fund has raised more than $50 million to fuel extracurricular early literacy programming, place one million books into students’ hands, build new school libraries and playgrounds, provide crucial technology for remote learning, combat food insecurity among district families, and much more. Roberson will continue building on this success, and evaluate how The Fund can make the most impact in the district moving forward.