Lauren Hadi is the Senior Vice President of Advancement. In this role Lauren is working to cultivate and grow philanthropic support for the Foundation in order to channel more resources to our grantee partners and amplify their critical work.
Lauren has dedicated her career to improving educational opportunities for underserved students. With more than 20 years of experience in the education non-profit sector she has significant expertise in fundraising and building partnerships. Prior to joining the Foundation, Lauren spent more than 10 years at Room to Read where she served as the Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships. In this role, Lauren was charged with identifying and securing transformational opportunities to increase the impact and scale of primary school literacy and girls’ education programs. She oversaw the development of the organization’s technical assistance practice and secured revenue for this new line of work. She led the expansion of a pipeline of funding sources that included the organization’s first bi-lateral and multi-lateral funding, collaborated with the program and operation teams to design projects, and oversaw the project management of the first technical assistance projects. During that time, Room to Read expanded its work from nine countries in Asia and Africa to 18 including expansion to the Middle East, Caribbean, and Latin America. Lauren joined Room to Read in Hong Kong in 2010 and as the Development Director for Asia Pacific leading business development in Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan for four years before returning to New York.
Before moving to Asia, Lauren worked at the College Board in New York overseeing the grants and advocacy team dedicated to initiatives focused on equity and access. She worked on the College Board’s public school projects in New York City as well as a national model for large high schools to promote college readiness for all students. Early in her career, Lauren was the Director of Education Programs at the Committee of 200, a Chicago-based membership organization of top women entrepreneurs and corporate executives in the U.S. There she had the opportunity to design, manage, and secure funding for a mentoring program for early stage women entrepreneurs and a scholarship program for women MBA students.
Lauren has a bachelor of arts from the University of Rochester and a master of public administration with a concentration in education policy from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.