The fight against poverty continues!
New York non-profit the Robin Hood Foundation has named ex-paratrooper and Citigroup investment division veteran Wes Moore as their new CEO, according to Bloomberg.
Moore will take the boss skills obtained from leading 1,800 troops against Taliban during his stint in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2006 and his banking expertise to his new role. He served as a paratrooper and captain with the 1st Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division of the U.S. Army.
“I came back understanding and realizing that the greatest opportunities we have in this country will not be won by our air force machinery nor the bombs we can drop,” Moore told Bloomberg. They “are going to be fought and found with our ability to unearth every drop of human potential we have.”
Moore graduated with honors from Johns Hopkins University, then landed at Oxford shortly after September 11, where he wrote his thesis on Islam.
As far as professional experience, Moore brings six years in finance (including Deutsche Bank in London), a stint at the White House as a fellow for then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and his role as the founder of BridgeEdU, a startup to help students transition to college.
His Citigroup boss, head of corporate and investment banking Ray McGuire, praised his commitment adding, “He excelled at the basics, but also at the strategy." Additionally, Moore impressed his Citigroup boss by writing and publishing his book The Other Wes Moore, which he toiled away at during early morning hours before heading into work.
Succeeding David Saltzman, the 38-year-old powerhouse will be taking a holistic approach, and wants to combat poverty by working with government agencies and other partners. “Philanthropy alone is not going to fix this," Moore noted. “Part of our role is to be a convener, the secretary of the future.”
His personal history with poverty has a huge impact on his efforts as well. A native of Baltimore, Moore was three when his father died and his Jamaican-born mother moved the family to live with her parents in the Bronx. There, he ended up experiencing two different ends of the New York spectrum: spending his days at his private Riverdale Country School and his evenings in his own "graffiti-and crack-filled neighborhood." He went through a whirlwind of school struggles, and ended up in handcuffs before finding his path in military school.
How does Moore feel right about now? Well, he summed it up by citing Notorious B.I.G.'s Sky's the Limit saying, “There’s a line in it where he says, ‘Stay far from timid, only make moves when your heart’s in it. And live the phrase sky’s the limit.’ That’s how I’m approaching this work."
In the last year, Robin Hood distributed $133.3 million in grants and initiatives for more than 200 nonprofits and provided support valued at $51.6 million to charter high schools. Moore will assume his new position at the end of June. The sky's the limit, indeed.
