Managing Director
Cara’s motivation to build a career in executive search and talent strategy is grounded in a commitment to support leaders and teams as they work to realize a more just, equitable world. As Managing Director at NPAG, Cara partners closely with clients to lead strategy and design of people-centered processes that support diverse teams through growth and transition. Cara’s approach brings partnered design thinking to search strategy with her clients that includes learning together, iterating, and soliciting feedback in order to refine and innovate our practice. For almost ten years, Cara has led searches for a wide range of nonprofit and philanthropic organizations with missions connected across a range of justice movements. With the accelerating erosion of reproductive rights, Cara’s search practice has increasingly focused on supporting leadership transitions of organizations working at the intersections of the reproductive health, rights, and justice and gender justice movements.
Prior to her work at NPAG, Cara served as Program Associate for Grantmakers In Health (GIH), where she led programming to support health foundations design health equity agendas. At GIH, she stewarded the National Alliance for Health Equity, a learning network connecting grantmakers to design best practices for addressing racial and ethnic health disparities. Previously, Cara was a Health Promotion Specialist with Alice! Health Promotion at Columbia University where she developed and evaluated programs seeking to transform the campus culture to one promoting balanced eating, healthy interpersonal relationships, and mental health. During this time, Cara completed a Master of Public Health degree from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, concentrating in reproductive and family health. Prior to that she was an Associate at Community Science Inc., working on evaluations of community health initiatives aimed to reduce racial and ethnic health disparities and promote community integration. During her undergraduate career at the University of Maryland, Cara served as a patient advocate at a local reproductive health clinic in Prince George’s County, Maryland, an experience that motivated her deep interest and passion for reproductive health.
Born in the Bay Area and raised in Atlanta, Cara is now based near Philadelphia with her family. Cara comes from a family of artists and finds connection to this legacy through her board service with Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens.