Darnell Cadette is a strategist, builder, and operator with a deep commitment to advancing economic mobility and building a more inclusive economy. He brings over 15 years of experience in project, program, and people management across the nonprofit, philanthropic, and private sectors.

Darnell’s work lives at the intersection of strategy, implementation, and equity. He partners with mission-driven organizations to design and operationalize bold, community-rooted solutions—particularly those grounded in the leadership and experiences of historically marginalized communities. His portfolio spans K–12 education, youth development, housing and homelessness, workforce development, and emergency response, with a consistent throughline of centering community voice and driving cross-sector collaboration.

Most recently, Darnell served as Director of Operations and Innovation for Assessment for Good (AFG), an R&D initiative of the Advanced Educational Research and Development Fund, focused on co-designing formative assessment tools with and for Black and Latinx learners ages 8–13. At AFG, he led operational strategy and implementation across research, product, and community engagement functions—standing up internal systems, managing cross-functional teams, and ensuring equity and inclusion were embedded throughout program design and deployment. Darnell also helped build and manage research partnerships with schools and community organizations nationwide and played a key role in launching the initiative’s first large-scale study reaching 20,000 students.

Prior to AFG, Darnell co-founded and led the Community team at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), where he most recently served as Senior Director of Strategy and Operations. Over seven years at CZI, he helped shape and scale major programmatic efforts—including the CZI Community Fund, the CZI Community Space, Children & Youth Experiencing Homelessness, and a cross-cutting capacity-building portfolio. He led strategic planning, directed more than $200M in grants, oversaw multi-million-dollar budgets, and established partnerships with hundreds of nonprofits, school districts, government agencies, and community leaders across the country.

Earlier in his career, Darnell served as Program Manager for the T3 Initiative at Teach Plus in Washington, D.C., supporting teacher leadership development in partnership with school districts. He was also a founding team member at Link Strategic Partners, where he served as a communications and community engagement consultant to school systems and nonprofits, and managed town-gown relationships as a Presidential Fellow at The George Washington University.

Darnell holds a Master of Public Policy and a Bachelor of Arts from The George Washington University. He is currently based in Atlanta and calls the Summerhill Community home.

Founder and Principal, DKC Consulting

(he/him)

About
Darnell K. Cadette