After helping to design fellowship programs which support entrepreneurs for three years, from time to time, I serve as an evaluator for said programs such as Echoing Green, and the Mandela Washington Fellowship. These spaces cultivated my optimistic can do attitude, and are why I continue
to give back to them.
Economist.
Entrepreneur.
Strategist.
I believe talent is widespread, and opportunity is not. I work to improve access to opportunity.
About Me
Fanta Traore is an economist and entrepreneur with nearly a decade's experience in the social impact and innovation spaces. She leverages data and research to solve her team’s most pressing challenges through analysis, storytelling, and program design. She has a knack for implementation and enjoys using data to strengthen the case for economic and social justice for people who have infinite potential but are limited by the circumstances that inefficient policy has afforded them. Her commitment to championing economic inclusion is ignited by her fascination with the economic complexities witnessed growing up in the dynamic, culture-rich, and also heavily unequal city of New York.
She is a proud alumna of Howard University where she obtained dual degrees in economics and political science and graduated summa cum laude, and a Phi Beta Kappa inductee. After Howard, she supported entrepreneurs grow their enterprises and organizations across the world (with Echoing Green and the African Leadership Academy's entrepreneur accelerator) and notably in francophone Africa, where her family is from. Fanta also spent time working in the social entrepreneurship ecosystem at Anzisha Prize. She has supported 100+ organizations by leveraging her ability to use data for social impact and brokering partnerships across francophone Africa. Further, she worked as a senior research assistant in the Federal Reserve System’s International Finance division, where she analyzed cross-border transactions data and the impact of financial market development on inequality. With the U.S. Central Bank, she also advised the Biden Transition Team on the Federal Reserve.
In 2018, she co-founded the Sadie Collective, the first American non-profit organization, dedicated to building the pipeline and pathway for Black women's careers in economics and related fields. The Collective has been featured on NPR, Fortune, Forbes, and the World Economic Forum.
Currently, Fanta is a Master in Public Policy at Yale University, where her research areas focus on the future of work, and economic inequality. Fanta has been recognized as a Global Shaper with the World Economic Forum and is on the Board of Directors of WAKE Academy, an all-girls school in Guinea. Fanta speaks four languages and is a sought out thought leader on shaping the future of work for youth and women.
