The Greater Worcester Community Foundation has named Barbara Fields, a one-time appointee in the Obama Administration, to succeed retiring President and CEO Ann Lisi.
Most recently, Fields was CEO and executive director of Rhode Island’s housing assistance program RIHousing, a position in which she served for four years. While there, she oversaw the state’s effort to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into the state’s economy, including financing the development of new housing and funding mortgages for first-time home buyers.
Prior to that, Fields served for 20 years as the founding executive director of the Rhode Island office of Local Initiatives and Support Corp. Her work there led to an appointment in the Obama Administration as New England Regional Administrator of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
She served in that role from April 2011 to August 2014.
“I look forward to developing new strategies to build on this momentum and meet the varied needs of an ever-changing population,” she said, in a press release. “We will expand out impact in the community, strengthen GWCF’s local partnerships and together, further the Foundation’s mission of enhancing Worcester in perpetuity.”
Fields holds degrees from Tufts University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Lisi is retiring from the organization she has led since 1992. She grew its revenue from $24 million to now over $155 million with more than 550 named funds that award nonprofits up to $8 million annually.
