Alumni Changemaker: Fanta Traore

Using economic research to create equitable outcomes

To honor our 40 years, we're celebrating our most valuable resource - our alumni - through 40 profiles highlighting their leadership. Alumna Fanta Traore completed the Junior Summer Institute at Princeton University in 2014.

Fanta Traore embodies the values of commitment, courage and empowerment.

Born in New York with Bambara as her first language, Fanta was deeply influenced by her family background.This along with her experiences growing up in New York City, sparked an early interest in political science.

She went on to graduate with honors from Howard University earning a dual BA in both Political Science and Economics.

While in school, she spent many summers traveling abroad and doing various types of research. She was also selected by Princeton University as one of 25 undergraduates to do graduate level coursework in the areas of policy, microeconomics and statistics.

After having held the position of both Research Assistant and Senior Research Assistant for the Federal Reserve Board where she analyzed economic research in International Finance, she became the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Sadie Collective.

Along with her partner Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman, they are using The Sadie Collective to help change the story for Black women in the field of economics and Fanta is using both research and critical data to do that.

Established in 2018 and with over 1000 members worldwide, the organization is rapidly becoming a global movement. It is working collaboratively to create spaces for Black women in quantitative fields. To date they are the only organization working to this end.

“When Black women and women of color do not have a seat at the table to inform or implement policy change, yet face the brunt of the negative externalities of the COVID-19 pandemic, then a change must be prioritized.”

Her current studies at Yale University has her on the trajectory to graduate in 2024 with both an Masters’ in Public Policy as well as an MBA in Strategy and Social Enterprise Management.

Fanta is opening doors where there were none and following in the footsteps of her inspiration, Dr. Sadie Alexander who is the first African-American to earn her PhD in Economics. With her unbridled commitment to equity within the field of economics, Fanta is using her skillset to empower and transform.

 

Thank you, Fanta for creating such positive change and bringing people together around the power of data. By courageously stepping forward and generously offering the resources you have cultivated, you are creating space for a global movement to transpire. This is both heroic and important. More diversity at the table invites forth more prosperity on behalf of all. We celebrate you!

 

Read more Changemaker profiles here!