Gary Walker

Gary Walker served as president of Public/Private Ventures (P/PV) from 1995-2006. P/PV is a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to improve the effectiveness of social policies, programs and community initiatives, especially as they affect youth and young adults. Enhancing the organization’s reputation for excellent work and credibility, Mr. Walker brought a strong focus on policy and communications and a belief that high quality organizations and the power of relationships to affect lives are underemphasized in most policy debates and initiatives. P/PV’s agenda continues to reflect these emphases today.

A former Wall Street attorney, Mr. Walker began his social policy work in the 1970s at the Vera Institute of Justice, where he set up Pioneer Diversified Services, Inc., a New York City-based business that hired only ex-offenders and recovering substance abusers. The success and lessons from that business led to the creation of the National Supported Work Demonstration, one of the earliest attempts to make work a key element of our nation’s welfare and social service policies. Walker managed this and other major national research demonstrations as Sr. Vice President of the Manpower Demonstration Research Corp. (MDRC).

Walker went on to direct the first national study of the Job Training Partnership Act, the nation’s major policy vehicle for job training during the 1980s. The disappointing findings led to a conviction that more effective policies for youth and young adults were the nation’s greatest need. He joined P/PV in 1986 to pursue that goal, providing leadership for initiatives in mentoring, after-school programming, violence prevention and workforce development, and for work with faith-based organizations, national service and volunteer programs.

Walker is a trustee and vice chair of the W. T. Grant Foundation; a trustee of the Hasbro Children’s Foundation, and a past trustee of the William Penn Foundation; board chair of Civic Ventures, a national nonprofit aimed at increasing the civic involvement of those 50 and older; chair of the national advisory committee for Grandparents Raising Grandchildren; and advisor to numerous philanthropic and public policy initiatives. He is a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Kansas and Yale Law School, where he was an editor of The Yale Law Journal.