Luz Vega-Marquis is the founding President and CEO of the Marguerite Casey Foundation, and retired from this role in June 2020 after leading the foundation since 2001. Under her leadership, the Marguerite Casey Foundation has led the philanthropic sector in advocating for a strategy where grantees are best served by multi-year general operating support funding that trusts leaders in the field. She has long supported movement building and organizing in places often overlooked by national foundations, and has been a national philanthropic leader in supporting people of color. More than 85 percent of Marguerite Casey Foundation grantees are organizations led by people of color and 60 percent of the staff as well as 82 percent of the board are people of color.
In addition to her work at the foundation, Luz has long been a champion for leaders of color. In 1983, she founded Hispanics in Philanthropy to support the careers and networks of a community traditionally excluded from the foundation world. She has recruited and continued to nurture hundreds of staff, board members, and leaders of color in philanthropy.