Media contact: Grace Nicolette – Vice President, Programming and External Relations: (617) 674-0763

For Immediate Release

Cambridge, MA – Rihab Babiker has joined the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) as its first vice president of finance and operations. Babiker comes to CEP with nearly 15 years of finance and operations experience in the nonprofit sector. She will oversee all aspects of CEP’s finances and operations, ensuring accurate and useful financial reporting and modelling to guide CEP’s decision-making and contributing to CEP’s overall strategic direction.

Babiker’s hiring marks a new era in CEP’s 18-year history of helping funders to be more effective in pursuing their programmatic goals. The creation of this role responds to CEP’s steady growth to more than $10 million in revenue this year and a staff of nearly 50.

“After a long, intensive process and an incredibly strong pool of candidates, I could not be more pleased to name Rihab to this crucial leadership role at CEP,” said Phil Buchanan, President of CEP. “She has the right mix of finance and operations skills and the kind of analytical mind and strategic sense that I know will make her a key part of CEP’s leadership team.”

Most recently, Babiker served as the associate director of finance and operations at Harvard University’s Center for International Development. As the associate director, she developed the Center’s first finance and operations unit, worked closely with the Center’s executive director to help advance the Center’s strategic direction, and was vital in the recruitment of the Center’s key hires. Prior to her work at Harvard, Babiker spent a decade working in a variety of finance and operations roles for the United Nations’ World Food Programme, and was based in Yemen, Italy, Jordan, and Afghanistan. Babiker holds a masters of finance from the Arab Academy for Banking and Financial Services and a B.A. in finance and banking from Al Al-Bayt University in Jordan.

“I’m very excited to join the talented team at CEP in their mission to improve the effectiveness of philanthropic funders,” said Babiker. “I look forward to leveraging my non-profit management experience to help drive sustainable growth.”

Babiker joins Kevin Bolduc, vice president, assessment and advisory services; Ellie Buteau, vice president, research; and Grace Nicolette, vice president, programming and external relations as one of CEP’s four vice presidents. The other members of the organization’s senior leadership team are YouthTruth Executive Director Jen Vorse Wilka and Director of Human Capital and Special Assistant to the President Alyse d’Amico.

The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) is a nonprofit organization with a mission to provide data and create insight so philanthropic funders can better define, assess, and improve their effectiveness and impact. CEP received initial funding in 2001 and has offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts and San Francisco, California. For more information on CEP’s work, including its research, assessments, advisory services, and programming, visit cep.org.