An introduction, a thank you, and a look at what’s ahead with Alex Fiorillo Posner Board Chair
Hello, Posner community —
I’m Alexandra Fiorillo (Alex), and I’m writing to introduce myself as the new Chair of the Posner Center Board. I joined the Board in December and stepped into the Chair role a few weeks ago. I am delighted to be stepping into this role, to formalize my commitment to strengthening Posner Center as a nonprofit and community. Over the coming months, I hope to meet many of you: the tenants who make this building hum, the members who show up for one another, and the partners who keep expanding what “collaboration” can mean.
Before I go further, I want to thank Wendy Lu Maxwell-Barton for her leadership. The Posner Center I’m stepping into is stronger because of the care she poured into it. We wish Wendy Lu all of our best as she and her family embark on a new adventure!
A bit about me: I’ve spent the last 25 years in international development and social impact — both globally and here at home. This work is my life’s work, and I’m deeply committed to the space Posner occupies in it. Last year, in the immediate wake of USAID’s dismantling, Susan Abbott and I co-founded the Tuesday Group, and I can’t tell you how overjoyed I am to watch what it has become. A new group of leaders has taken the helm and are reshaping it for the moment we’re actually in, which, to me, is exactly what a healthy community does.
The last five years have been a period of real transition for Posner. Our current Board is working hard to clean up processes, make decisions more transparent, and communicate regularly so expect to hear from us often. My top priority this year is hiring a new Executive Director, and I’m optimistic we’ll have someone wonderful in the seat before year-end. Posner Center deserves a visionary and strategic leader who can help the community evolve and grow.
Our sector is in a hard season. International development and domestic social impact work are being defunded, doubted, and reshaped in ways that would have been hard to imagine even a few years ago. It would be easy to retreat — to shrink our work, our ambitions, our rooms. I’d ask us to do the opposite. Places like Posner, where organizations with very different missions share walls and coffee and hard questions, are not a nice-to-have in a moment like this. They’re how we stay in the work, and how the work stays human. Choosing to gather, to collaborate, to keep showing up for one another in a time like this is a quiet form of resistance, and one of the most generative ones I know.
If you have questions, ideas, concerns, or hopes, please email me directly at . I’d love to hear from you.
With gratitude,Alexandra FiorilloBoard Chair, Posner Center