Heather Harding
Executive Director, Campaign for Our Shared Future
Heather Harding, Ed.D., is a founding member and the Executive in Residence at Education Leaders of Color (EdLoC). She also served as the Executive Director of the Campaign for Our Shared Future (COSF)—a time-bound campaign to address politically motivated attacks on equity, whose work continues under EdLoC’s umbrella.
Throughout her career, Heather has focused on the intersection between access to high-quality education and racial equity. She believes that respectful collaboration between parents and teachers is an essential tool for helping our kids succeed in life. As a mother of two teenagers, she knows that parents play the role of a child’s first and primary teacher.
Before earning master’s and doctoral degrees from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Heather taught middle school and high school in communities with limited opportunities for resources. Since then, her mission has been to improve education opportunities for all children, regardless of their class, color, or neighborhood. She had an opportunity to do this while serving as Teach for America’s Senior Vice President of Community Partnerships; as the founding Executive Director of EdCORE, a DC-focused education research consortium to improve outcomes for the students of the nation's capital; and in senior philanthropic leadership roles at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and most recently the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies.