InterAction

Bill Reese was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of IYF in January 2005.  He first joined IYF in May 1998 as its Chief Operating Officer.  He provides leadership and oversight for the management of the Foundation’s operations and programs supporting positive youth development in more than 70 countries and territories. 

Before joining IYF, Bill was President/CEO for 12 years of Partners of the Americas, the largest citizen-run, voluntary organization working to promote economic and social development in the western hemisphere.  Bill served for 10 years with the Peace Corps, first as a volunteer in an urban community development project in Salvador, Brazil, and later director of Brazil operations.  He was deputy director of the Latin American and Caribbean Region, before heading a special task force that managed the international celebration of the Peace Corps’ 20^thanniversary in 1981.

Bill served on the U.S. government’s Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid from 1991 to 2009.  He was appointed chair by the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and served 9 years, the longest serving chair in the 70 year history of this Federal Advisory Commission.

Bill is on the board and executive committee of InterAction, the association of 190 U.S. non-profits working in international development assistance and humanitarian relief. Previously he was the board’s chair, treasurer and led its Standards Committee. He also serves on the board of the Basic Education Coalition, and is founding co-chair of the Alliance for International Youth Development.

Previously, Bill was treasurer of Episcopal Relief and Development, board secretary of Women Thrive Worldwide, and he served on the boards of the Independent Sector, Eureka Communities, Amigos de las Americas, the Brazilian American Cultural Institute, the Alliance for International Educational and Cultural Exchange, the Washington Office on Latin America, the International Development Conference, the Rondon-Roosevelt Center (in Rio de Janeiro), Fundación para la Educación Superior/USA, COLEAD (Coalition for American Leadership Abroad), ChildHope International, and the Friends of the Art Museum of the Americas (OAS).  He was vice chair of the Debt for Development Coalition and Finance for Development, Inc.

Bill has strong interest and experience working with the business community, and in building strong public-private partnerships.  In that connection, he serves on 2 mixed corporate-NGO boards that counsel supply chains. ICTI-CARE collaborates with international toy manufacturers, with special attention to Chinese operations. He is also a board member of WRAP, the Worldwide Responsible Assembly Production, which certifies apparel and footwear suppliers to global brands and major retailers. He was a member of the International Workforce Development Advisory Committee of the Management and Training Corporation, the largest Job Corps contractor in the U.S. In 2009, Bill was elected to the board of the Alcatel-Lucent Foundation, guiding its philanthropic and community investment programs around the world.

Bill also has a lifelong commitment to international service and volunteerism. In that respect, be is a board member of the Global Citizen Year, a new initiative to promote and provide “gap year” work experience in developing countries for recent high school graduates.  And on the other side of the age continuum, he is a trustee of Encore International Service Corps that provides voluntary work opportunities for retirees who previously served in the Peace Corps.

Bill is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a Woodrow Wilson National Fellow lecturing on Latin American affairs, foreign policy and development issues.

A Dean’s List graduate of Stanford University in 1970, Bill majored in political science and Latin American relations.  He did graduate work at the George Washington University’s School of International and Public Affairs and taught U.S. diplomatic history.  He attended the Stanford Executive Program at the Graduate School of Business in 1995.  He resides in Washington, D.C. He and his wife, Suzanne M. Frederick, have four adult children.