Melissa Bradley (Co-Chair)

Executive-in-Residence, American University; Washington, DC

Melissa L. Bradley is a tri-sector leader with more than 20 years of entrepreneurship, investment and leadership experience. During the summer of 2016 Melissa was named as a Nonresident Senior Fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution.

She is Co-Founder and Managing Director of Sidecar Social Finance, a social impact agency that provides impact investing advisory and capital services to individuals, institutions, and social enterprises. She is also Founder and Curator of Venture DC, an initiative that seeks to empower emerging entrepreneurs who are addressing and solving some of DC's most pressing challenges.

Bradley has served as a Presidential Appointee under President Obama from 2012-2015. In this role she was Chief Strategy Officer at the Corporation for National and Community Service, served at the Department of Education and was responsible for securing over $20 million in public-private partnerships to support national service and My Brother’s Keeper. From 2014-2015 she served as Acting Director of the Social Innovation Fund, a White House Initiative committed to scaling ‘what works’ in our communities.