Julia Stasch serves as Lever for Change Board Chair and is the immediate past President of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. With a broad background of leadership in the business, governmental, and social sectors, she joined the Foundation in 2001 as Vice President for U.S. Programs and served as President from 2014 through 2019.

Earlier, she worked for the City of Chicago, as Commissioner of the Department of Housing and Chief of Staff to then-Mayor Richard M. Daley. Stasch was President and Chief Executive Officer of Shorebank Chicago Companies, including South Shore Bank, the nation’s first community development bank. She also served as President and Chief Operating Officer of Chicago-based real estate development firm Stein & Company. During the first Clinton Administration, Stasch served in Washington, DC, as Deputy Administrator of the General Services Administration.

She is a summa cum laude graduate of Loyola University Chicago and holds a master’s degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Currently, she is Philanthropy Executive in Residence at the Rustandy Center at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, co-founder of the Partnership for Safe and Peaceful Communities, and a board member of P33 and Embarc Chicago.