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Hope Street Group announced today that Monique Nadeau, the organization’s founding President & CEO, will transition out of her role leading the organization in late 2013. Under Monique’s leadership, Hope Street Group has grown from an all-volunteer organization to a network of thousands of individuals—including elected officials, social and business entrepreneurs, educators, health practitioners, employers, policymakers, and business, civic, community and faith leaders—working collaboratively and successfully to increase access to economic opportunity across the United States. In the past few years, Monique has raised more than $9 million of funding to support this mission and has steered the organization on an annual growth trajectory, with the support of national foundations and partners, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Linked-In, PG&E, and others.

“Monique’s remarkable vision, creativity, and intellect have been essential to building Hope Street Group.  After an enormously successful career in international finance, she took on a new challenge as a social entrepreneur and catalyst for policy change and public-private partnerships to help more people live the American Dream,” said Chairman of the Board, Byron Auguste. “And she’s been equally successful at Hope Street Group. She has built a tremendously effective team and recruited an impressive roster of leaders to Hope Street Group, many of whom have become board members and active partners.”

During her tenure, Nadeau has led important initiatives in policy reform in the areas of Education, Health and Jobs & Workforce Development. Hope Street Group played an active role in the Race to the Top competitive grant program, and worked with leading states, including “first in the nation” Delaware, to implement its Race to the Top plans. Hope Street Group has provided numerous forums in which health care thinkers and practitioners have generated innovative approaches to pressing issues, including spiraling health care costs, the reinvention of primary care, and barriers to health care access. Most recently, Nadeau and Hope Street Group have been working with business and education leaders to boost employment and upward mobility through a New American Skills System.

“Working in a town that is polarized and paralyzed, Monique brought people together and got things done,” added Drew Altman, President and CEO of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

Under Nadeau’s leadership Hope Street Group has increased its impact through user-friendly technology platforms, including an online teacher evaluation playbook currently in use in states and districts throughout the country. The playbook provides a collaboration platform for educators to share ideas, data and best practices in the implementation of Common Core and Race to the Top, that is built on unique and high-quality thinking created by a diverse group of education policy stakeholders. Similarly, Hope Street Group, in conjunction with a broad-based partnership of employers, technology innovators and business and education partners, is building a Digital Career Passport to help students and young, job-seeking Americans succeed. This ongoing work was recently highlighted in a New York Times op-ed about the future of job creation and career success.

“Monique’s entrepreneurial drive, public policy expertise and passion for actionable reform, along with her efforts to expand and improve the organization, were integral to making Hope Street Group the important force it is today,” said Ted Meisel, Vice Chairman of the Hope Street Group Board. “She cultivated and led insightful work across multiple policy areas, while also creating a ‘roll up your sleeves’ culture of impact.”

Building on previous work in health, Nadeau is stepping down to launch Grow Your Family Strong, a new social venture seeking to provide an interactive community and technology platform aimed at supporting a healthier lifestyle for all families. She will continue as President and CEO until the end of the year, and afterwards will remain on the Board as a Co-Founder, stating, “I’m honored to have led Hope Street Group in its formative years. It is an amazing organization made up of people who want to solve the tough challenges facing our country today. I’m proud of what we have been able to achieve together in policy development and implementation and I look forward to supporting Hope Street Group in the future.”

Prior to Hope Street Group, Nadeau served as a Managing Director and acting member of the North America Management Committee for Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein. During this time, she pioneered more than $4 billion of public-private finance initiatives for the UK Government and led a cross-national European risk management team serving governments, corporations, and financial institutions. Nadeau has a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School, and completed her undergraduate studies at the School of International Service, American University in Washington, D.C. and L’Université Paris-Sorbonne IV. Nadeau also studied at the University of Salamanca in Spain and the University of London. Monique’s prior political work, including advising on presidential campaigns and for other national leaders, has centered on developing moderate, result-driven economic policies.

The search for Nadeau’s successor will be conducted by Hope Street Group’s Board of Directors, which has appointed a search committee, with the support of Heidrick & Struggles. Inquiries should be directed to Joe Haberman (jhaberman@heidrick.com or 202-331-4906), or Lauren Doliva (ldoliva@heidrick.com or 415-981-2854).