Announcement

Data & Society Welcomes
Ellen Pao &
Raina Kumra
to its Board
of Directors

Data & Society is delighted to welcome Ellen Pao and Raina Kumra to our Board of Directors. 

Ellen Pao is a tech investor and advocate, the former CEO of reddit, and a cofounder of the award-winning diversity and inclusion nonprofit Project Include. Her writing has appeared in WIRED, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, Lenny, and Recode. She has earned an electrical engineering degree from Princeton and law and business degrees from Harvard.

“I am delighted to be joining Data & Society at this crucial time in the organization’s development from a small independent research institute to an even more impactful lever for change,” says Pao.

Raina Kumra is concurrently an early stage technology investor with The Fund, the founder of Spicewell, a functional foods company (because Big Food requires as much attention as Big Tech and Big Pharma), and CEO of Juggernaut, a digital and organizational transformation bureau helping organizations be more human. She is a member of the Ad Council’s Issue Advisory Board and a mentor at Techstars LA. In the past she has led strategy and investments for the Technology Ethics portfolio at Omidyar Network and co-founded Mavin, an app engagement platform. She served in The Obama Administration as Co-Director of Innovation at the BBG, and with the U.S. Department of State. Prior to that, Raina led Digital at Wieden+Kennedy New York and spent over a decade in advertising at BBH and R/GA.  Raina holds a B.S. in Film Production from Boston University, an M.A. in Interactive Telecommunications from NYU’s ITP program and an M.Des.S. in Design Studies for Digital Applications in Urban Planning and Architecture from Harvard University. She is a member of The Council on Foreign Relations and one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business.

“Coming from the frontlines of tech, investing and systems change, I am excited to work on the governance level of an organization devoted to challenging the power and purpose of technology in our ever-changing world,” says Kumra.

“Ellen and Raina are tremendous additions to Data & Society’s board,” says Janet Haven, executive director of Data & Society. “Their wide-ranging combined expertise in accountability, messaging, governance, and DEIA work will deeply extend our strategic planning and governance capacity.”

“I am beyond excited to welcome Ellen and Raina to our Board of Directors,” says Data & Society Founder and President danah boyd. “Fresh vision and perspective will guide the institute into its next phase of producing empirical evidence that drives the public debate around technology.”

Anil Dash rotates out of a eight-year term to become a Data & Society Advisor, and former Twitter General Counsel Alexander MacGilivray rotates off to serve as Principal Deputy United States Chief Technology Officer of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.