Dr. Kalisha Dessources Figures is an impact strategist who works across policy, politics, and research to advance gender and racial justice and strengthen civic engagement and leadership. With a breadth of experience across sectors, and unwavering passion about a more equitable world, Kalisha has over a decade of experience organizing coalitions, advancing policy, and scaling the impact of initiatives and organizations.
Kalisha currently runs KDF Strategies, a social impact firm specializing in gender policy, organization-wide strategic planning, and strategic partnerships. She is also a Senior Fellow at Civic Nation where she runs the Change Collective, a leadership initiative that aims to train, connect, and elevate emerging leaders to drive change in their local communities.
From 2015-2017, Kalisha served as a Policy Advisor to President Obama’s White House Council on Women and Girls. In this role, she was responsible for guiding a policy portfolio focused on advancing equity for women and girls of color, with a focus on a range of issues, including criminal and juvenile justice reform, discriminatory school discipline, and diversity and inclusion in STEM.
builder. innovator. doer.
Following her time in the Obama Administration, Kalisha led a number of consulting projects focused on gender equity, racial justice, and civic engagement, to include serving as Director of the National Collaborative of Young Women’s Initiatives, and as Senior Advisor and Director of Partnerships for Mrs. Obama’s voting organization, When We All Vote. Kalisha returned to politics to serve in the Biden-Harris Administration, first on the Biden-Harris transition team as Deputy Director of Public Engagement, and then as Special Assistant to the President for Gender Policy on the White House Gender Policy Council. There, she led the Administration’s whole-of-government implementation of the first-ever national gender strategy, while also leading work on data, racial equity, and the council’s strategy on equity for girls.
Prior to her work in government, Kalisha was an educator who taught secondary math and science in north and west Philadelphia. A proud Haitian-American from New York, Kalisha received her PhD from Yale University, where her dissertation research focused on system-impacted girls of color who had dual-involvement in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. She received her undergraduate degree from Cornell University and her Master of Education from the University of Pennsylvania. She is author of New York Times Bestseller, YES SHE CAN: 10 Stories of Hope and Change by Young Female Staffers of the Obama White House.