Camille M. Busette, Ph.D.
Interim Vice President, Governance Studies Director
Race, Prosperity and Inclusion Initiative, Brookings Institution

Camille M. Busette, Ph.D., is the Interim Vice President of Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. She is also the Director of the Race, Prosperity, and Inclusion Initiative, focusing on issues of equity, racial justice and economic mobility for low-income communities and communities of color.

Prior to joining Brookings, Busette was an executive at the World Bank where she led the World Bank’s financial inclusion innovation arm. She was the inaugural CEO of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Office of Financial Education, where she was a member of the Policy and Executive Management teams. Busette has held executive positions at PayPal, Intuit, and NextCard and is a Public Governor of FINRA, the self-regulatory agency for the broker-dealer industry. She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in political science from the University of Chicago, and a B.A. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley and is former Ford Foundation Post-doctoral fellow.

Ayeola Fortune
Vice President
Impact Team, United Way Worldwide

Ayeola Fortune is the Interim Senior Vice President of the Impact Team at United Way Worldwide. She provides oversight, strategic guidance, and support to team members managing key initiatives in education, economic mobility, and health. She leads UWW’s efforts to support local United Ways to integrate equity into their impact work by developing frameworks, strategies, peer learning and training opportunities, and developing resources and tools. She also leads UWW’s efforts to collect and aggregate data from local United Ways’ to demonstrate collective impact across communities via the Global Results Framework.

Becca Bice
Director of Family Pathways
United Way for Greater Austin

Becca Bice is the Director of Family Pathways at United Way for Greater Austin, working to ensure all families in Austin are financially stable. She is passionate about the power of collaboration to change the systems that hold
people in poverty. Becca has spent 9 years in the nonprofit sector in various issue areas, including workforce, healthcare, historic preservation, and geography education. She lives in Austin, Texas and holds a Master of Public Affairs from the University of Texas at Austin.

Amy Weber
Chief Impact Officer
United Way of Greater Cincinnati

Amy Weber has been with United Way for more than 10 years in positions of increasing responsibility. She helped develop the organization’s new investment model – unveiled in 2022 – which funds community-driven efforts
and partners working together to create solutions to entrenched, decades-old challenges. She also has led efforts to develop United Way’s knowledge management and thought-leadership initiatives. She brings content expertise in economic mobility and leadership in complex problem solving, foresight and innovation. Weber holds a juris doctorate from NKU Chase College of Law and is pursuing a master’s degree in strategic foresight from the University of Houston. She was named one of eight top innovators by United Way Worldwide in 2020 and participated in Cincinnati Chamber’s WE Lead Class 14.

Ralph Smith
Managing Director
Campaign for Grade-Level Reading
@readingby3rd | CampaignforGLR

Ralph Smith serves as Founding Managing Director of the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, a network of more than 350+ communities, representing 46 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Canada — with 5,200 local organizations, and more than 500 state and local funders (including over 200 United Ways).

Previously, as Executive Vice President for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Smith led the Making Connections initiative, a comprehensive effort to improve outcomes for children by strengthening families and neighborhoods. Smith served on the Foundation’s Senior Leadership Team from 1994 through 2016.

Smith taught Corporations and Securities Law and Education Law and Policy as a member of the Law Faculty at the University of Pennsylvania for two decades. He also served as Chief of Staff and Chief Operating Officer for the School District of Philadelphia and as a senior advisor to Philadelphia’s mayor on children and family policy. Smith led efforts to design and implement the school district’s landmark voluntary desegregation plan, negotiate some of the nation’s first education reform-driven teacher contracts, and develop Children Achieving, a district-wide blueprint supported by the Annenberg Challenge.

Smith is the founding director of both the National Center on Fathers and Families and the Philadelphia Children’s Network, and he has served on governing and/or advisory boards of numerous other nonprofit, for-profit, and philanthropic entities. Among Smith’s favorite honors are the Champion of Children Award (Foundations, Inc.), GlobalMindED Inclusive Leader Award (GlobalMindED), the Jane Addams Distinguished Leadership Award (United Neighborhood Centers of America), and Fred Rogers Leadership in Philanthropy Award (Grantmakers for Children, Youth, and Family).  

MODERATOR

Marjorie Sims
Managing Director
Ascend, Aspen Institute

Marjorie has more than 20 years of experience in advancing the status of women and families at local, state, national, and international levels, as well as in expanding women’s roles in leadership positions within philanthropy. Before joining Ascend in 2018, she served as program officer at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation with a specific focus on family economic security programs and managed a $65M grant portfolio. Prior to joining the Kellogg Foundation, Marjorie held the positions of chief operating officer, interim president, and vice president of programs and operations at the Washington Area Women’s Foundation, where she helped launch Stepping Stones, a $5 million, multi-year, regional initiative to increase the income and assets of women-headed families. In addition, Marjorie served as the executive director of the California Women’s Law Center and as a policy analyst with the International Center for Research on Women. She is a co-founder of Women’s Policy, Inc., an organization that emerged from the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues to provide unbiased analyses and educational briefings about federal legislation affecting women and families.  

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