Joe Scantlebury is the President and CEO of Living Cities, a collaborative of the world’s largest foundations and financial institutions who work together to fight poverty in America’s cities.

He previously served as the vice president for program and strategy (places), where he led, designed and implemented strategic programming efforts to improve the lives of vulnerable children and families in the foundation’s priority places, including: Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico and New Orleans in the United States, and internationally in Haiti and Mexico.

Previously, he served as senior program officer, U.S. Program Advocacy, at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Washington, D.C. Prior to the Gates Foundation, he was a staff attorney at the Youth Law Center in Washington, D.C., where he advocated and litigated nationally to reduce disproportionate minority confinement and addressed conditions within the juvenile justice system.