Geoffrey Canada

Geoffrey Canada is the president of Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ), a world-renowned education and poverty-fighting organization based in New York City, and founder of William Julius Wilson Institute (WJWI). An innovator in the field of education, author, and leading advocate for children, Canada has made it his life’s mission to help young people from under-resourced communities succeed through education. Under Mr. Canada’s leadership, HCZ became a national model of place-based innovation for organizations across the country and the world. In 2010, President Barack Obama created the Promise Neighborhoods Initiative to replicate the HCZ model in under-resourced communities throughout the United States. In 2020, Mr. Canada came out of retirement to launch WJWI, a national resource for place-based, people-focused solutions that open pathways to social and economic mobility. For its first initiative, WJWI led a national COVID-19 Relief and Recovery Effort to combat the devastation of the pandemic in Black and brown communities across the country.