Jeffery T. D. Wallace, a native of Richmond, California, is a next-generation social entrepreneur uniquely equipped to fulfill the dual roles of visionary and architect to find a sustainable solution to almost any social issue. He is president and CEO of LeadersUp, a nonprofit that bridges the gap between the untapped potential of young people and the business challenge of finding and keeping the best talent. With Wallace, LeadersUp has established best practices by facilitating employer-led solutions that are demand driven and human centered to tackle high youth unemployment in Chicago, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. He gets in front of the issues that fuel educational and economic inequities and unites people around shared goals to achieve disruptive and transformative change.

A graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles (he studied music and earned a bachelor’s degree in education), Wallace was the first undergraduate student conductor in UCLA’s music department. He later earned an MS in education from UCLA and a master’s degree in organizational development from the University of California, Berkeley. Additionally, he is a fellow of the Presidio Institute and a Metropolitan Non-Resident Fellow of the Brookings Institution. In 2019, he received the Dr. Winston C. Doby Community Coalition Award from the Los Angeles Urban League. In 2018, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., Alpha Nu Omega Chapter, recognized him with the Excellence in Community Advocacy Award, and he was named one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People.