Lee Davis
Co-Founder and CEO
NESsT
(California, USA)
Lee Davis is Co-Founder and CEO of NESsT. 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.
Mr. Davis has lived in Budapest, Hungary and worked on nonprofit sector development issues throughout Central and Eastern Europe since 1994. 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 countries.
From 1991-93, Mr. Davis 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. While at CARE, he also was an active participant in the International NGO Working Group on Education, working as a member of the international drafting team for the NGO treaty on education and sustainable development during preparations for the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) and at NGO Global Forum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992.
Prior to entering the nonprofit sector, Mr. Davis 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.
In 1988, Mr. Davis was a recipient of the prestigious Thomas J. Watson Foundation fellowship to undertake a yearlong independent research and travel project in Switzerland and Japan. Mr. Davis 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. He was born in New York and currently lives in California.