Melanie Willingham-Jaggers is the new executive director of GLSEN.
It is a promotion from within as Willingham-Jaggers first joined the organization in 2019 as deputy director and has been serving as interim director for the past year. She will be the first person of color, first nonbinary person, and first Black woman to lead the organization in its 32-year history.
Willingham-Jaggers arrived at GLSEN after nearly six years at Cornell University, where she served as a program manager and then as associate director of The Worker Institute at School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Prior to that, she worked as lead organizer and coalition coordinator in New York City for ALIGN’s National Caring Across Generations campaign.
Willingham-Jaggers first started her career on the west coast in the San Francisco Bay area. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in politics, peace and justice studies from the University of San Francisco, she got a job as program coordinator for the Young Women’s Freedom Center. She would work there for two years before moving on to become a department manager at Health Initiatives for Youth.
Moving across the country, Willingham-Jaggers took a job as program manager for the 21st Century Youth Leadership Council at the American Institute for Managing Diversity in Atlanta, GA. After this she would move up North to New York City to become the Greater New York City area runaway and homeless youth program coordinator for Green Chimneys, a comprehensive youth development organization focused on nurturing connections between youth, families, communities and nature. It was after two years in this position that ALIGN took notice and brought her on.
Now, Willingham-Jaggers takes the lead at one of the largest organizations dedicated to creating a better world for LGBTQ+ young people.
“LGBTQ+ students across the country are facing a crisis amid attacks on their rights and the ongoing pandemic, and we need bold leadership now more than ever,” said Rocío Inclán, GLSEN Board of Directors Chair in a press release about the appointment. “A true leader for their community, Melanie always looks first to the grassroots leadership of the LGBTQ+ youth of color, trans youth and youth with disabilities who are on the frontlines, and centers their experiences and needs in all GLSEN’s work. Melanie is exactly the leader our movement needs to bring our fight for LGBTQ+ justice to the next level as GLSEN’s Executive Director.”
