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Marisa Renee Lee: ‘Rabble-Rouser’ for Obama

By  Alex Daniels
January 5, 2016
40 Under 40: Marisa Renee Lee, ‘Rabble-Rouser’ for Obama 1
My Brother’s Keeper Alliance


Marisa Renee Lee, 32
Managing Director, My Brother’s Keeper Alliance
Washington

Marisa Renee Lee is helping to lead a cause that has the backing of one of the world’s strongest brands: President Obama.

As managing director of the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, Ms. Lee helped create a free-standing nonprofit based on White House efforts to improve the lives of minority boys and young men — a cause Mr. Obama has said he’ll focus on when he leaves office.

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40 Under 40: Marisa Renee Lee, ‘Rabble-Rouser’ for Obama 1
My Brother’s Keeper Alliance


Marisa Renee Lee, 32
Managing Director, My Brother’s Keeper Alliance
Washington

Marisa Renee Lee is helping to lead a cause that has the backing of one of the world’s strongest brands: President Obama.

As managing director of the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, Ms. Lee helped create a free-standing nonprofit based on White House efforts to improve the lives of minority boys and young men — a cause Mr. Obama has said he’ll focus on when he leaves office.

Ms. Lee says she was a nonprofit “rabble-rouser” even before she had a driver’s license. At 15, she helped persuade the Gap Foundation to support a mentoring program for students entering high school in her hometown of Wappingers Falls, N.Y. While attending Harvard, as her mother was struggling with late-stage breast cancer, she co-founded the Pink Agenda, a cancer-care nonprofit that raised nearly $1 million before it was acquired by the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

40 Under 40: A Force for Good

See profiles of other trailblazers crafting innovative new solutions to entrenched problems.

Ms. Lee worked at a Wall Street bank before she landed a job in the White House, where she held advisory posts on small-business and urban development and managed public-private partnerships. A big part of her current job is courting the support of corporate America. But for Ms. Lee, securing donations plays to her strengths.

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“I’m good at getting people excited about things and I’m shameless when it comes to asking for money,” she says. “If it’s something I believe in, I will hit you up repeatedly.”

Note: A previous version of this article mistakenly said Ms. Lee had worked on the 2008 Obama presidential campaign.

A version of this article appeared in the January 5, 2016, issue.
We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
Executive LeadershipGovernment and RegulationCorporate SupportAdvocacy
Alex Daniels
Before joining the Chronicle in 2013, Alex covered Congress and national politics for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He covered the 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns and reported extensively about Walmart Stores for the Little Rock paper.
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