Dear ECMC Foundation Community,

It is with great enthusiasm that I begin my service as president of ECMC Foundation and assume the stewardship of an organization whose core mission is to ensure that students across the country complete postsecondary education and go on to earn family-sustaining wages. I am honored to serve our nation through the lens of ECMC Foundation and am grateful to the leadership of ECMC Group for their commitment to our shared mission.

During the past decade, Peter Taylor provided extraordinary leadership across the ECMC Group enterprise and has had an immeasurable impact on the fields of philanthropy and higher education. I join the Foundation team in expressing our sincerest gratitude to Peter for his leadership. I am personally grateful to Peter for his support during this transition and wish him the very best in his retirement.

My professional experiences are a testament to the power of education and training after high school to advance social and economic mobility. From personal experience, I understand and deeply empathize with countless individuals from underserved communities for whom a postsecondary education represents the promise of a better economic life and deeper engagement with their communities.

I am grounded in a belief that people from all walks of life deserve an opportunity to realize the privileges afforded by a postsecondary credential. I bring a deep passion for improving the lives of individuals, particularly students of color and first-generation college students.

My career has focused on creating opportunities and advancing transformational change in higher education through public policy advocacy, philanthropy, coalition building and knowledge sharing.

Through multiple leadership roles spanning more than three decades, I have had the honor to serve state and national associations of colleges and universities, philanthropic organizations, and public policy and advocacy consortia. From these experiences, I learned the value of creating knowledge, establishing proof points, informing institutional practitioners and academic leaders and leveraging public policy resources. These experiences align well with the shared mission of ECMC Foundation and ECMC Group, and I am humbled to join these student-centric and reform-minded organizations.

I am excited to lead an amazing ECMC Foundation team, collaboratively build on the recently launched strategic framework, finalize a strategic plan and joyfully engage a new era at the Foundation. Together, we will embrace a resolve to achieve transformational change that meets the challenges of this moment and the highest aspirations of the students and communities we are privileged to serve. In the weeks and months ahead, we look forward to meeting with grantee partners, philanthropic colleagues and public policy stakeholders, as well as my fellow ECMC Group team members, to advance our mutual goals.

Sincerely,

Jacob Fraire
President
ECMC Foundation