Ben Hecht is the President & CEO of Living Cities, a collaborative of eighteen of the world’s leading foundations, such as the Bill & Melinda Gates, Ford and Rockefeller foundations, and financial institutions, such as Bank of America, Prudential and Citigroup, who work together to boldly fight poverty in America’s cities. Under Ben’s leadership, the organization has established a new data driven, model of social change that brings together local business, government, philanthropic and community leaders to disrupt long-obsolete systems and focus on achieving needle-moving results. The organization’s $40 million loan fund has been selected as one of the world’s top 50 impact investment funds for six consecutive years. Its network of local public sector leaders from forty cities is spreading and adopting a new culture of municipal innovation and re-imagining the relationship between government and citizens. Ben received his JD from Georgetown University Law Center and his CPA from the State of Maryland. He currently chairs Duke University’s Center for Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE) Advisory Council and sits on the National Advisory Board for StriveTogether. He previously served as founding chair of EveryoneOn, a national initiative founded by the Federal Communications Commission to connect low-income Americans to digital opportunity and as Finance Committee chair and Treasurer for the Georgetown Day School (GDS) board of trustees. He has been selected as one of the Top 100 City Innovators Worldwide in the area of Urban Policy and as a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Resident Fellow.
