Lee Davis is a Co-Founder and CEO of NESsT. Along with NESsT partner Nicole Etchart, Lee is co-author of several books on social enterprise and venture philanthropy, including: All in the Same Boat: An Introduction to Engaged Philanthropy, Risky Business: The Impacts of Merging Mission and Market, and Profits for Nonprofits.
Prior to starting NESsT, Lee was a Research Fellow in the "New Directions in Grassroots Development" initiative of the Johns Hopkins University, Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), where he authored the The NGO-Business Hybrid, an international study of nonprofit enterprise activities in 13 countries. At SAIS, Mr. Davis also served as a Professorial Lecturer in the graduate Program on Social Change and Development where he developed and co-taught the first graduate-level course on social enterprise.
For more than a decade Lee has worked on nonprofit sector development issues throughout Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and Latin America, living and working from Budapest, Hungary, from 1993-2000 and Santiago, Chile, from 2000-2003. From 1996-97, he worked with the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC) in Budapest as a Program Officer in the Public Participation Program, coordinating the project activities with partners in Bulgaria and Romania. From 1993-95, Mr. Davis worked with the Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies Third Sector Project where he coordinated training, internship and publications programs with nonprofit support centers in the 7 participating CEE countries.
From 1991-93, he worked for CARE, the international relief and development agency, in its headquarters office in New York City, where he launched the organization's internal publications design unit. Prior to entering the nonprofit sector, Lee worked in marketing and corporate identity firms in the US, Europe and Japan producing corporate annual reports and publications for major corporate and educational clients, including Canadair, NationsBank (now Bank of America), Xerox Corporation and Yale University.
Lee holds an M.A. in Policy Studies from the Johns Hopkins University, Institute for Policy Studies, with a focus on the nonprofit sector and international development; and a B.A., magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Connecticut College, where he was the recipient of the Barbara E. Gurwitz Memorial Prize for excellence in community service. In 1988, he was a recipient of the prestigious Thomas J. Watson Foundation fellowship to undertake a yearlong independent research and travel project in Europe and Asia.
Lee is the Chair of the Alumni Advisory Board of the Toor Cummings Center for International Studies and the Liberal Arts (CISLA) at Connecticut College.
He was born in New York and currently lives in California while also dividing time between NESsT’s regional offices in Europe and South America.