2024 Business Women Awards
WOMAN TO WATCH | PROFESSIONAL SERVICES: Michelle Carr
Leadership Rhode Island executive director
WHEN SHE FIRST STEPPED into her role as Leadership Rhode Island’s executive director in July 2022, Michelle Carr felt akin to walking through the door of a house whose foundation she was a part of building and then making it home.
That move, Carr says, meant that she would spend less time behind the scenes and more time working alongside the Providence-based leadership development nonprofit’s board of governors around strategic visioning, engaging its alumni network and diverse stakeholders in local communities and facilitating collaborative partnerships.
“I’d like to think that on a whole, my time is spent learning and leading alongside community leaders with passion and purpose,” Carr said. “I’m not afraid to dream big. I enjoy building a shared vision with others, visually translating that vision into a flexible action plan, and aligning people with resources to make it happen.”
Over time, home became where the heart is for Carr, who has been with Leadership Rhode Island since 2014. She first started as director of programs and rose to being deputy director two years later.
Before arriving at her current professional home, Carr spent nearly seven years at the International Institute and the merged Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island, two local nonprofit organizations dedicated to the support of the state’s immigrant and refugee populations.
In her tenure with Leadership Rhode Island, Carr has managed multiple partnerships and ventures to help benefit the nonprofit. One such partnership was with The Papitto Opportunity Connection, which led to Leadership Rhode Island receiving a $1.75 million grant that would help the nonprofit’s impact toward diversifying and upskilling Rhode Island’s current and future leadership.
Plus, Carr has worked to support youths via the Prepare RI program. Established in 2018, it was created with the aim of offering incoming high school juniors the educational and professional tools to secure paid summer internships. As of 2024, the program has assisted a total of 900 students with internship training and improving future professional outcomes for them.
