Staff Leadership

Chastity Lord

President and CEO

Chastity has spent two decades dedicated to dismantling systems of inequity for marginalized communities. She deeply believes that generational poverty is a social justice issue and that families are the best owners and narrators of their lives. History has proven time and again that building infrastructure, leadership, and power for marginalized communities creates a contagion of long-term change.

Chastity’s professional North Star and commitment to equity and justice for the past two decades is influenced by her own personal experience as a first-generation college graduate. Prior to JP, Chastity served as Chief Operating Officer at Color of Change (COC), a racial justice organization with 7+ million members.

Prior to joining COC, Chastity was the Chief External Officer of Achievement First, a nonprofit organization that operates 50 public charter schools in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Brooklyn. Chastity also spent eight years at The Posse Foundation, a nationally-recognized and MacArthur Genius-awarded college access program devoted to public high school students who show academic and leadership potential, but may be overlooked by the traditional college admissions process.

She has a BA in organizational communication from the University of Oklahoma and an MBA in strategy and marketing from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. She is a 2012 Pahara-Aspen Fellow with the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

Chastity serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees for Shriver National Center on Poverty Law. In the past year, she was quoted as a thought leader in top-tier outlets including Reuters, Politico, CNN, MSNBC, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, CBS Morning, and NPR.