M. Lee Pelton

Lee Pelton is the CEO & President of The Boston Foundation, one of the nation’s leading philanthropic organizations with $1.9 billion in assets. He joined the Foundation in June 2021, after serving as President of Emerson College (2011-2021) and Willamette University (1998-2011).

Pelton has positioned The Boston Foundation, one of the nation's first and most influential community foundations, as an agent for social change by centering equity in its programs, grantmaking and civic leadership. Under his leadership, the Foundation’s defining ambition is to achieve equity, which first involves acknowledging and then seeking to eliminate the structural and underlying causes of outcome disparities for historically marginalized communities. A signature Boston Foundation program is its Racial Wealth Partnership, established in late 2022 as part of the Boston Foundation’s commitment to close racial wealth gaps in Greater Boston and the region by expanding homeownership in underserved communities.

As a college president for 23 years, and dean before then, he was guided by a core belief that higher education must serve to deepen students’ appreciation of humanities. He believes that the nation still looks to colleges and universities to solve its most pressing problems and, as such, college and university presidents have an obligation – in addition to broad mission-driven duties on their campuses – to engage in the larger society.

He graduated from Wichita State University, located in his hometown and earned a Ph.D. in English literature at Harvard University.