The Trustees of the Hudson-Webber Foundation today announced that Melanca Clark has been named as President and CEO of the Foundation. Ms. Clark joins the Foundation from Washington, D.C. where she currently serves the U.S. Department of Justice as Chief of Staff of the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, a grant-making component of the DOJ, overseeing the office’s administration of nearly $1 billion in active grants. She will assume her new role in August 2016.
“The original donors of the Hudson-Webber Foundation left a tremendous legacy of striving to improve the quality of life in the city of Detroit. It took a deliberate and thorough search to find an individual who is particularly capable and committed to lead the Foundation into its next chapter. We found that leader in Melanca,” said Jennifer Hudson-Parke, Board Chair. “In our search, we looked for a candidate who will continue to foster a culture of collaboration among our partners and peers, advance our strategic direction, and reflect a passion for our mission areas. Melanca’s personal character and leadership qualities, career experiences, and her genuine desire to see Detroit continue to prosper give us complete confidence that we have selected the right candidate to serve as our third President and CEO of the Hudson-Webber Foundation.”
Throughout her career, Ms. Clark has demonstrated innovative and collaborative leadership while striving to build strong communities through a social justice lens. At COPS, Ms. Clark devised creative funding strategies and partnerships to advance community policing and police reform. At DOJ’s Access to Justice Initiative, she developed and implemented the office’s strategy for increasing legal counsel for homeowners facing foreclosure, working with HUD’s International and Philanthropic Affairs Office to engage a group of foundations around opportunities for philanthropic support. As a Senior Policy Advisor with the White House Domestic Policy Council, she convened foundations and key stakeholders to enlist support for and communicate the President’s priorities with respect to enhancing fairness in the criminal and juvenile justice system, strategically aligning philanthropic and private sector investments.
Prior to serving in senior positions in the Obama Administration, Ms. Clark held a variety of positions advancing equal access to opportunity including as Counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, John J. Gibbons Fellow in Public Interest and Constitutional Law at the Gibbons Law firm, and as a Skadden Fellow and Assistant Counsel with the Economic Justice Group of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.
Ms. Clark also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Joseph A. Greenaway, Jr., U.S. District Court New Jersey; adjunct professor at Seton Hall University School of Law, and a litigation associate in the New York office of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.
“I am honored and thrilled to have been chosen to lead a foundation that has such a storied legacy in Detroit,” said Ms. Clark. “The Hudson-Webber Foundation is singularly committed to ensuring that Detroit achieves its greatest potential by improving the vitality and quality of life of the entire Detroit metropolitan community, and I look forward to working with the Trustees and staff to build on the Foundation’s catalytic investments.”
Ms. Clark earned her law degree from Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA and her undergraduate degree from Brown University, Providence, RI. She will be moving to Detroit with her two children to join her husband, Moddie Turay, who was named the Executive Vice President of Real Estate and Finance for the Detroit Economic Growth Corp in October 2015.
“The Search Committee was taken with Melanca’s fresh perspective, and focused and clear ideas as to how the Foundation could refine and extend its efforts within its four mission areas, building on the Foundation’s 15×15 strategy while expanding opportunities for all Detroiters,” said Amanda Van Dusen, Trustee and Search Committee Chair. “The Hudson-Webber Foundation will also benefit from the dual perspective she brings having served in philanthropic-funded non-profits as well as in roles providing critical and impact funding to initiatives and programs.”
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