Monique Garcia Rizer is a Vice President at a social impact consulting firm where she leads and advises on a range of projects related to economic mobility and brings unique lived and learned expertise to her work. She has advised major philanthropies and nonprofits on new research initiatives related to economic mobility, investment strategies to increase Black equity, and advises a place-based family philanthropic office, among many other areas of work. Prior to this role, Monique was a nonprofit leader, having served as the regional executive director of a youth development nonprofit that provided workforce readiness skill development, evidence-based programming, and rigorous work-based learning experiences to nearly 800 youth and young adults in six school districts.

She previously led a national coalition that developed and relaunched an Opportunity Index and secured partnerships with social science researchers and the media to tell the story of opportunity in America. She also previously created and grew a workforce program for military spouses who are predominantly women and has written extensively about career transitions in the military community.

Monique’s lived experiences and professional work on economic opportunity have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Black Enterprise Magazine, and the Washington Business Journal, as well as at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Biden Institute, among others. She is a first-generation college graduate and an inaugural Gates Millennium Scholar. She earned a B.A. from Gonzaga University and an M.S. from Syracuse University. Monique is a mom to three children and her eldest serves as an officer in the Army National Guard.