Power moves: Pew Charitable Trusts appoints new president and CEO

1. Susan K. Urahn to become Pew’s new president and CEO

The Pew Charitable Trusts recently announced that Susan K. Urahn, currently the organization’s executive vice president and chief program officer, will  become its new president and CEO, effective July 1.

“Sue has been an important part of Pew’s success in state policy, health care, and conservation, and her breadth of experience is unmatched,” said Robert H. Campbell, chair of Pew’s board of directors. “She is also a strategist and creative thinker who will champion Pew’s core values and protect the organization’s reputation for nonpartisanship, fact-based research and recommendations, and integrity.”

Urahn joined Pew in 1994 as a member of its planning and evaluation division, and directed the department from 1997 to 2000. She helped launch the Pew Center on the States and served as the center’s director from 2007 to 2012. She became an executive vice president in 2012 and chief program officer in 2016.

Before she joined Pew, Urahn worked with the Minnesota House of Representatives and at the University of Minnesota. She holds a bachelor’s degree and a doctorate in education policy and administration from the University of Minnesota.

Urahn succeeds longtime CEO, Rebecca W. Rimel, who is retiring after overseeing the organization for 32 years. On July 1, Rimel will transition into a temporary senior adviser role.

2. Romana Lee-Akiyama becomes the director of multicultural affairs at the Office of Immigrant Affairs.

Romana Lee-Akiyama. (Courtesy photo)

Romana Lee-Akiyama was recently named the director of multicultural affairs at the Office of Immigrant Affairs for the City of Philadelphia. She leads community engagement strategy for the Office of Immigrant Affairs, and is the liaison to the Mayor’s Commission on African and Caribbean Immigrant Affairs and the Mayor’s Commission on Asian American Affairs.

Lee-Akiyama most recently served as a senior program officer of global network engagement at Eisenhower Fellowships. Before that she worked on local and national policy and program development, organizational capacity building, grantmaking and diversity and inclusion initiatives for the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation, National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development, United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey and WOMEN’S WAY.

Lee-Akiyama was appointed to the PA State Advisory Committee of the US Commission on Civil Rights in 2016, and co-founded Women of Equity, a peer leadership network to support women of color in the nonprofit sector.

She holds a bachelor’s degree from Tufts University, and master of law and social policy and master of social science degrees from Bryn Mawr College Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research. She is a fellow with the Center for Asian Pacific American Women.