Fonta Gilliam

Fonta Gilliam has had a long and distinguished career in public service. In 2007, they began as a Foreign Policy Fellow for the Office of Congresswoman Barbara Lee in the U.S. House of Representatives, where they drafted a bill calling for U.S. divestment from the Government of Sudan. Fonta then joined the U.S. Embassy Seoul in 2008 as a U.S. Diplomat, launching an advocacy campaign that led to the South Korean government’s shuttering of a bank participating in illicit financial flows and designing a vocational training program for the North Korean defector community. In 2007, they also began working for the U.S. Department of State as a Program Manager, International Economist, and U.S. Diplomat, advising the 2011 G8 Deauville Summit Leaders on fiscal transparency and revenue mobilization strategies. During their time there, they raised over $32 million in public and private capital to support programs under their leadership, and structured a $30 million Post-Ebola Recovery Socio-Economic Investment Fund. Gilliam then joined Deloitte as a Manager in 2016, followed by Echoing Green as a Fellow the same year. In 2019, they became the CEO and Co-Founder of Wellthi.

Fonta Gilliam obtained a Master of Arts in Development Economics and International Development from American University between 2005 and 2007. Prior to that, they earned a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Political Science & Economics from Howard University between 2000 and 2004. In addition, they obtained a Grants Officer Representative certification from the U.S. Department of State in December 2014 and a Performance Monitoring & Evaluation Certification.