As Senior Vice President, External Engagement for City Year Inc., Tasha Booker oversees the organization’s marketing and communications departments to provide strategic direction to strengthen and enhance City Year’s brand and position in the education space. As SVP, for a $180M organization with 29 sites across the U.S. and 2 international affiliates in the U.K. and South Africa, Tasha is an important external voice of City Year, and partners with senior leaders to achieve alignment and effectively amplify the organization’s brand, position, and thought leadership in support of the organization’s Framework for the Future and pursuit of educational equity.
Prior to her appointment as SVP, Tasha served as Executive Director to City Year Columbus, where she is credited with securing the first-ever school district contract in the organization’s 26-year history. Tasha Booker merges her love of research with her considerable professional experiences so that she is especially effective as a nonprofit executive and education sector expert. With nearly two decades of nonprofit and K-12 education experience, Tasha is known as an authentic leader who’s been consistently successful navigating the intersection of innovation, social responsibility, philanthropy, and profitability.
Prior to joining City Year, Tasha enjoyed roles with increasing responsibility with organizations like, I Know I Can, United Way of Central Ohio, The Boy Scouts of America, and Nationwide Children’s Hospital. It is in those spaces where Tasha honed her ability to drive vision, strategy, and fundraising while mobilizing teams to accomplish levels of performance not known prior to her arrival. Tasha also leverages her extensive education and nonprofit experience as part-time faculty in the nonprofit Administration Masters program at John Carroll University in Cleveland Ohio.
“Deal with yourself as an individual worthy of respect and make everyone else deal with you the same way” is Tasha’s mantra and is evidenced in her passion for continuous learning, diversity, equity, and inclusion and as demonstrated by her commitment to community. Tasha can often be found as a panel member for speaking engagements with organizations like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and The Columbus Metropolitan Club. She serves as a member of the Board of Directors for Besa Columbus, Harmony Project and Homeport and previously with The Human Services Chamber of Franklin County. Tasha is also a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated, The Columbus Chapter of the Links Incorporated and was a founding member of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Central Ohio Chapter. Tasha has been recognized by several organizations and publications, including Business First’s class of Forty under 40, Columbus CEO, Smart Business Executive Directors, Columbus CEO Future 50, WELD Columbus, and Progressive Woman by Smart Women Columbus.
In addition to receiving an honorary Doctorate of Community Leadership from Franklin University, Tasha holds a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from Franklin University and Master of Education and teaching licensure from Mount Vernon Nazarene University. She is married to Troy Fowler and is the proud mother of Logan, bonus son TJ, Skittles – the family’s 5-pound poodle, Sir Cooper the Airdale Terrier and Rocky and Thumper the Guinea Pigs.
This commentary is intended as an addendum and recent update to the original research article published in World Affairs, “The High Representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina: The Unusual Institutional Arrangement of a Non-Authoritarian, yet Controlled, Democracy”