Chief Operating Officer, Chief of Staff
E-mail: mwalker@stopbreastcancer.org
Mara Walker joined the National Breast Cancer Coalition as Chief Operating Officer/Chief of Staff in June 2022. Mara is a nonprofit leader with over 30 years of experience helping organizations and their people achieve their goals. As the former Chief Operating Officer for Americans for the Arts, she was responsible for the overall performance of the organization, which included a c3 and c4, working to ensure its resources were used effectively to accomplish the organization’s complex strategic plan. In that role she transformed the organization from a staff of 12 to 65+ working in multiple cities and grew the budget from $3M to $18M, with assets of over $100M, through a series of mergers and significant gifts. She has led inclusive strategic planning efforts that drive measurable outcomes and performance metrics. With a background in financial and staff management, Mara has developed transparent policies and procedures that enabled innovation, impact, and a workplace culture built on intentional diversity, equity, and inclusion values. Mara collaborated with staff and board members and over 6,000 field-wide voices to create its Cultural Equity Statement which acknowledged the systemic changes needed to address societal inequities and included internal and external outcomes strategies.
Mara, a native New Yorker, currently serves as Vice Chair of Theatre Washington and Chairs their Governance Committee and has consulted on board development. She holds a BA in theatre from George Washington University and an MFA in theatre management from the University of Maryland.
