Cordell Carter

Cordell Carter II has made significant strides in his career in both the public and private sectors. As the Executive Director of the Aspen Institute's Socrates Program and Founding Director of the Project on Belonging, Carter has been instrumental in driving conversations around belonging and inclusion. His impact extends to his work in curating leadership seminars for the Aspen Institute, reaching over 1,000 leaders annually, and his efforts in shifting the national conversation on racial equity through the "Visionaries Summit: The Future of Belonging in America" and the "Festival of the Diaspora." As the creator and lead facilitator of “Becoming an Inclusive Republic and producer of the documentary “The Road Trip to Belonging,” he is a sought-after facilitator and speaker on belonging and inclusion, post-secondary success, and democratic ideals.

In addition to his work with the Aspen Institute, Carter has held leadership positions with several other noteworthy organizations, including the TechTown Foundation, which he founded in 2014 to pursue his passion for leveraging human technology for greater impact, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle Public Schools, Business Roundtable, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, and the IBM Corporation. His role with the TechTown Foundation, which provides technology education to K-12 students, earned him recognition as a 2016 Champion of Change for Computer Science Education by the Obama Administration.

Furthermore, Carter advises leaders and boards of directors through Expectant Advisory, a human-capital advisory firm, on their enterprise-wide inclusion and belonging learning journeys. He serves on the President's Commission on White House Fellowships and advises SkillStorm on creating technology-training academies in underserved communities. His leadership has been recognized with multiple honors, such as the 2021 Distinguished Alumni Leadership Awardee by Cultural Vistas, an Eisenhower Fellowship to China, and being selected as a "40 under 40" by business and civic organizations in Washington State and Tennessee.

Carter earned a J.D. from the University of Notre Dame Law School, a M.Sc. in Public Policy and Management Studies from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Washington.