Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA) has announced Latanya Mapp Frett as its next president and CEO.

The current president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women, Mapp Frett is slated to begin her post in January 2024, succeeding outgoing CEO Melissa Berman, a longtime sector leader, who has led RPA since its inception 20 years ago. An attorney by training, Mapp Frett began her career at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund in Washington, D.C., and has previously served as executive director of Planned Parenthood Global and worked as a human rights officer for both the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The author of The Everyday Feminist: The Key to Sustainable Social-Impact Driving Movements We Need Now More Than Ever, Mapp Frett serves on the boards of Oxfam International, Oxfam America, Management Sciences for Health, and the Luminate Foundation. She has received two Esteemed Meritorious Honor Awards from the U.S. government and the Superior Honor Award from the U.S. State Department.

“On behalf of the board, I would like to express our excitement and delight in welcoming Latanya to RPA,” said RPA board chair Valerie Rockefeller. “Latanya’s 20-year career brokering alliances and community-centered solutions to thorny global challenges, coupled with her passion for equity, make her the ideal person to lead RPA’s next chapter. We salute Melissa’s legacy and look forward to supporting Latanya in our ongoing work of accelerating philanthropy in pursuit of a just world.”

“I am honored to join RPA at a critical time for philanthropy worldwide,” said Mapp Frett. “RPA’s worldwide platform is well positioned to help funders embrace and value the path to real, lasting change while opening ways for those most marginalized to ensure social change on their own terms.”

(Photo credit: Global Fund for Women)