Burnell E. Holland III
Vice President of Collective Action, K-12 Education & Youth Development
Burnell E. Holland III is a strategic advisor and social impact executive who has spent his career helping institutions turn vision into measurable outcomes for young people and the communities that raise them. He serves as Vice President of Collective Action, K-12 Education & Youth Development at America's Promise Alliance, where he works alongside the Alliance community to move from shared intention to shared action.
Burnell joined APA from Gilded Knight Consulting, the social impact and management consulting firm he founded and led. There he advised nonprofits, government agencies, and philanthropic institutions on strategy, governance, and execution, with a portfolio that included backbone support for My Brother's Keeper initiatives in Washington, DC and Fairfax County, Virginia. Across every engagement, his approach rests on a simple conviction: the people closest to the problem are closest to the solution.
Earlier, Burnell served as Deputy Director of the My Brother's Keeper Alliance at The Obama Foundation, where he led a national grant competition that directed more than $5 million toward evidence-based youth violence prevention and mentoring programs. Before that, he was Chief of Staff in the DC Public Schools Office of Innovation and Research, managing the Empowering Males of Color initiative to improve educational and life outcomes for African American and Latino boys and young men.
His career began in public affairs and campaign work in the San Francisco Bay Area, followed by service on the staff of the Speaker Pro Tempore of the California State Assembly. He is an alumnus of the Coro Fellows Program in Public Affairs.
Burnell holds a bachelor's degree from Boston College, a Master of Public Administration from Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, and an Executive Master's in Leadership from Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife and son, and if there is a complex problem to be solved, he is usually right in the middle of it, especially when the solution expands access and opportunity for others.