Charlotte Golar Richie is an experienced leader and administrator with a background in public service and political activism, and a deeply held commitment to civil rights. Throughout her career, Charlotte has held various positions in government, including as Boston’s Chief of Housing and Director of the Department of Neighborhood Development, and as Commissioner for the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. With her election in 1994 to the State Legislature, where she chaired the Housing and Urban Development Committee, Charlotte was only the 7th Black woman to win a seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and the first to chair a committee during her first term.

Since an historic run for mayor of Boston in 2013 as the city’s first African-American woman, Charlotte has continued to direct her efforts in support of women’s leadership and her personal mission to get more women and women of color elected to public office: as a board member with the MA Women’s Political Caucus, Interim Advisory Board Chair of UMass Boston’s Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy, and as Co-Founder and Board Chair of MAWOCC’s Advisory Board. A graduate of Rutgers University (B.A.), Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism (M.S.) and Suffolk University’s Sawyer School of Management (M.B.A.), Charlotte and her husband Winston are former U.S. Peace Corps Volunteers and proud parents of adult daughters, who are dedicated to effecting positive change in their own communities.