Felicia Wong’s New Role, and What’s Next for Roosevelt

I am writing with genuine excitement about the Roosevelt Institute and its future. After 12 years of leading the Roosevelt Institute as its president and CEO, Felicia Wong has decided to shift her focus within Roosevelt. In 2025, she will transition into a new role spearheading the growth of the Roosevelt Society. A new initiative of the Roosevelt Institute, the Roosevelt Society fosters and expands a network of talent who share our vision for an economy and democracy that are more productive and more inclusive. This move is a reflection of Felicia’s deep belief in building and sharing power, as she says herself in an email, below, that she sent on Friday announcing her news. 

Felicia’s role change will make room for a new president and CEO to lead our organization. As board chair of the Roosevelt Institute, and as a granddaughter of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, I share this news with deep gratitude for Felicia and her continued commitment to bringing to fruition our vision for an American economy in service of the many, not the few. 

Under Felicia’s leadership, Roosevelt has led a major reconceptualization of the role government can and should play in shaping our economy and ensuring it works for the public good. Importantly, Felicia and Roosevelt have helped promote not just critiques but solutions: a new paradigm, within which power is balanced and the economy is innovative, growing, and equitable. 

We know that ideas don’t socialize themselves. That’s why Felicia has led the building of a field and a talent pipeline to put effective leaders in positions of power. And we’re just getting started.

To continue this progress, I cannot think of a better place for Felicia to focus her time and energy than the Roosevelt Society.  

We will begin a search for a new president and CEO immediately, during which time Felicia will continue to actively serve as president and CEO. Once the search is complete, Felicia will transition to her new role. Her work will include supporting and onboarding the new CEO and helping to build the progressive economic field through the Roosevelt Society.

On behalf of our entire board of directors, I want to say a huge thank you to Felicia—whom we love dearly—for her leadership and ongoing commitment to Roosevelt, as well as for her friendship. It has been a pleasure to work in partnership with her over the past 12 years, and I am so glad that she’ll remain in the family even as she helps us bring on new leadership for the Institute. 

_______

Email from Felicia Wong 

Date: Fri, Jun 7, 2024 at 11:33 AM

Subject: Exciting news about my role at the Roosevelt Institute

Dear friends, partners, and colleagues,

I am writing with news. After much personal reflection, and 12 amazing years as president and CEO of the Roosevelt Institute, I have decided that I am ready for a change in how I work and where I focus my time. And so, in 2025, I will transition to a new role at Roosevelt, focusing on the growth of the Roosevelt Society, a new initiative of the Roosevelt Institute, emphasizing the “people” part of our “paradigms and people” vision. 

The change in my role is part of my long-standing belief that to win, we all must build, grow, and share power. This means the Roosevelt Institute will be making room for a new president and CEO.

Leading and shaping the Roosevelt Institute into what we are today has been the honor of a lifetime. We’ve come a long way! Our mission is clear. We generate bold new ideas about how the economy works, engage a multigenerational network of great people to make those ideas real, and are building the field to translate Rooseveltian ideas into policy and practice. 

This is all in the spirit of our namesakes, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, who believed that “. . . government is ourselves, and not an alien power over us.” We at the Roosevelt Institute take that to heart. Every day, whether the news out there is good or tough, being a Roosevelter and helping to grow this field brings me great hope and great joy.

Roosevelt is healthy and thriving. That’s what makes now the right time to grow our leadership team and for me to pass the torch.

In partnership with all of you, we are steadily changing the way policymakers and other leaders think about the American economy. 

Ours is a moment of paradigm change. Our vision has the potential to be transformative. Over the last decade, Roosevelt has developed a network of thinkers who are rewriting the rules of the American economy. We have advanced breakthrough policy ideas and moved them from the margins to the mainstream. In just the past few years, our government has:

• Employed industrial strategy to put hundreds of billions of public dollars to work, in service of building stronger supply chains and a low-carbon economy; 
• Tackled corporate power and reinvigorated anti-monopoly enforcement; 
• Empowered workers and catalyzed an upswing in successful unionization; 
• Since the pandemic, overseen the fastest economic recovery among our peer countries—with robust growth, full-employment fiscal policies, and rising wages, especially for low- and middle-income workers.

These policy wins are all the result of a new paradigm that we, together, have helped to shape and drive. There is, of course, much more to be done, and I look forward to working with you on what comes next from my new perch.

I have been inspired by this movement, which is why I am thrilled to continue to make our vision real through the Roosevelt Society. The Society will foster and expand a network of talented experts and leaders who share our commitment to an economy and democracy that are more productive and more inclusive. Great policy requires great people. 

In this time of transition, and until the Institute names a new leader, I will continue to actively serve as Roosevelt’s president and CEO.  

Thank you so much for your partnership and support over the years. Our nation and world face many challenges at this moment in history. I am grateful to face them in community with each of you. 

With gratitude for all that you do, and with every best wish, 

Felicia