Georgia Mjartan is president and CEO of Central Carolina Community Foundation. She has been recognized as a Southerner of the Year by Southern Living Magazine and was awarded the prestigious Aspen Institute Ascend Fellowship. She serves on the national board of Parents as Teachers, the Community Investment Council for the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, and the Post and Courier Education Lab Advisory Council. Georgia’s work has been featured on national news programs including NBC News, USA Today, and PBS. In Arkansas, she was named Nonprofit Executive of the Year and an Arkansan of the Year, and in South Carolina, she was recognized as Advocate of the Year, a Woman of Distinction, a member of the Columbia Power List, and was honored with a Resolution by the SC House of Representatives. Previously, Georgia led a state agency, South Carolina First Steps, expanding PreK statewide, more than doubling the reach of programs to directly serve over 60,000 young children annually, and creating FirstFiveSC.org, a first-in-the-nation tech innovation which transforms the way citizens apply for public early childhood programs. She began her career working on rural development projects for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the US Administration for Children and Families. After several years as a strategy and communications consultant, she led the turnaround of a large-scale, anti-poverty nonprofit called Our House, dedicated to moving families out of homelessness. She doubled the organization's housing and shelter capacity, created employment pipeline and job training programs, developed the state’s first after school and summer program for homeless youth, and built a 20,000 square foot center for homeless infants, toddlers, and school-aged children. Georgia earned a master’s degree in Public Affairs and Political Communications from the University of Ulster (UK) as a George Mitchell Scholar and bachelor’s degrees in English and Political Science from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock as a Donaghey Scholar. She is a graduate of Harvard University’s Senior Executives in State and Local Government program and is a Riley Diversity Leaders Initiative Fellow.

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