Dr. Aisha Francis is president of Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute of Technology, an independent technical college with a student body comprised of 70% Black and Latinx males and with graduation rates three times higher than the state average for two-year colleges. Under her leadership, the college executed a major fiscal turnaround and is building a new campus in Roxbury, Massachusetts. She joined the college as chief of staff, was promoted to CEO in 2020, and was appointed as the college’s first female president in 2021. Aisha previously worked as managing director of development at Harvard Medical School, where she secured several $1M+ campaign gifts. She held prior leadership positions at Economic Mobility Pathways, a nonprofit that serves to end family homelessness, and with the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library Foundation. Among other civic roles, she is a board member of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center and WBUR, Boston’s public radio station, and The Bill and Joyce Cummings Foundation, the largest family foundation in New England. Aisha received the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Pinnacle Award in 2023, the Social Mobility Award from the Ad Club of Massachusetts in 2021, and was named as one of 50 Movement Makers by the Boston Business Journal in 2020. She participated in the 2019 Harvard Business School Young American Leaders Program. Aisha is a Fellow of the Civil Society Fellowship and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.