Chuck Lief

Charles Lief is the President of Naropa University in Boulder, CO. Founded in 1974, Naropa is the birthplace of Contemplative Education, and serves 1000 undergraduate and graduate students as well as offering online programs, extended studies and professional development. Naropa’s curriculum is built on a foundation of contemplation, mindfulness and compassion.

Chuck has been a Buddhist practitioner for 45 years, studying closely with the Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche and is a teacher in that lineage. Chuck was the first President of the Greyston Foundation in Yonkers, New York, one of the earliest models of integrated nonprofit social enterprises and service providers, founded by the Zen Buddhist teacher, Roshi Bernie Glassman. As a principal in the Hartland Group of Burlington, Vermont, Chuck worked to create affordable housing and economic development projects in Vermont and New Hampshire. He was a founding board member and CEO for Amida Care, a nonprofit, special needs HMO for low income residents of New York living with HIV/AIDS and chronic mental illness, now a $400 million social enterprise. He has been a member of many nonprofit boards working toward sustainable social, economic and personal transformation.