Dr. Lorna Read named Managing Director with LEAP | Pecaut Centre for Social Impact

TORONTO, January 11, 2021 – LEAP | Pecaut Centre for Social Impact’s Board of Directors is pleased to announce that Dr. Lorna Read will be the organization’s new Managing Director, effective January 11, 2021. 

“Lorna has extensive experience and demonstrated results in building and growing social purpose organizations to address complex issues.” said Joan Dea, Chair of the Board. “LEAP is on an ambitious path to create meaningful change and Lorna’s leadership will be instrumental to our success and that of our social ventures.”  

With more than 25 years of experience leading the transformation of organizations and social impact initiatives, Lorna has a deep passion for engaging diverse stakeholders in a way that can multiply and leverage expertise and resources towards a collective goal. Most recently, she founded a strategic advisory that has supported and mentored entrepreneurial and executive leaders in organizations in Canada to tailor effective and measureable social impact strategies.  Prior to this, she spent 15 years in global executive leadership roles at War Child Canada and Right To Play International, based in Toronto. Both organizations more than tripled in terms of revenue, social impact, and operations during her tenures.  She has led research and development projects in Latin America for university consortia and government agencies, worked for the Institute of Latin American and Iberian Studies at Columbia University, and held consultancies for Canadian Embassies, UNICEF, INSTRAW and the MacArthur Foundation. Dr. Read has served as an adjunct professor and taught courses related to community and global development, at universities in Canada and the U.S.

“I am very excited to be joining LEAP | Pecaut Centre for Social Impact as they lead the way in transformational change in the Canadian social sector,” said Lorna. “Success at scale within Canada’s new reality will require strategies that emphasize collaborative, engaging, inspiring connectors of people and ideas, which is exactly LEAP’s vision and mandate.“

Lorna holds a doctorate in Political Science from Columbia University, with a concentration in comparative politics and international relations. Having lived and worked in over 50 countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East, she has spent her career deeply immersed in social issues and their solutions. Her proven skills in social innovation, mentorship, multi-sectoral partnership creation, government relations, and fund development will enable LEAP | Pecaut Centre for Social Impact to address the increasing and evolving social problems in Canada.