Rupa Ramadurai

Rupa brings to this work over a decade of experience in the public and private sectors, and more specifically in government, K-12 and higher education, nonprofits, and startups.

Rupa has consulted with The Department of Housing & Urban Development, where she focused on supporting HUD to incorporate racial equity in their planning for low-income housing at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Rupa has also overseen and designed a national fellowship program at Leadership for Educational Equity (LEE), which focused on providing opportunities to BIPOC educators as they transitioned into careers in education policy or advocacy. While working with LEE, she also designed virtual programming for local elected leaders around the country, focusing on how they could amplify racial equity into their roles and in service of their communities. Additionally, she has served as a consultant at the Obama Foundation in the Community Leadership Corps. In this capacity she served as a coach, empowering others to become agents of progress in their personal and professional spheres.

More recently, Rupa has transitioned to talent management and strategy work, and currently serves as the Senior Director, People & Culture at a bipartisan, political non-profit, where she has launched Employee Resource Groups and a DEIB Work Committee amongst numerous other organizational-culture initiatives. As a former Special Education teacher, Rupa believes in the power of individuals unpacking their unique value-add in the world, and in making the learnings of the classroom directly applicable to one’s community.

Rupa holds a B.A. from the University of Michigan, an M.S. in Education and Social Change from the University of Miami, a J.D. from Loyola University Chicago School of Law (where she specialized in Education Law and Policy), and is currently pursuing her M.B.A from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.