Leadership in New York

Quamid Francis

Senior Vice President and Executive Director for City Year  New York

Quamid serves as the executive director of City Year New York. In this role, Quamid maintains strategic relationships with the New York City Department of Education, City Year New York’s Board, corporate and philanthropic partners, and the wider New York City community. In addition, Quamid leads the staff and 210 AmeriCorps members who serve full-time in 17 of the New York City’s schools, reaching over 7,000 students each day. City Year AmeriCorps members partner with teachers and schools to cultivate learning environments where all students can build on their strengths, fully engage in their learning, and experience success—helping them progress on their journey towards bright futures.

A native of St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, Quamid joins City Year New York with extensive public service experience and a deep understanding of how New York City’s civic and business landscape shapes communities. Quamid is deeply passionate about leading work at the intersection of education and workforce development to support communities where solutions to seemingly intractable problems caused by systemic injustices appear elusive.

Most recently, Quamid served as Deputy Commissioner, Chief of Staff, and Chief Diversity Officer at the New York City Department of Veterans’ Services (DVS). He oversaw agencywide programs, operations, strategic partnerships, and legislative affairs in that role. During his tenure at DVS, the City housed over 1,000 formerly unhoused veterans in less than five years as an agency; established a Care Coordination Unit to provide access to quality mental health clinicians, housing and legal support services, access to affordable housing, and education benefits; and developed a new online employment tool, designed to help veterans and their families find employment.

Quamid also served on New York City’s COVID-19 Taskforce and the Taskforce for Racial Inclusion and Equity (TRIE). On the COVID-19 Taskforce, Quamid served on the hotel management and food distribution subcommittees, connecting tens of thousands of New Yorkers to safe quarantine sites and access to fresh hot meals daily. While on the TRIE, Quamid helped to ensure historically underserved and heavily impacted communities from the COVID-19 pandemic gain access to broadband to, in part, mitigate the disruption to students’ learning and development while remotely learning.

Before joining the DVS Team, Quamid served as Executive Policy Officer for the NYC Department of Citywide Administrative Services, Office of the Commissioner. In this position, he managed multimillion-dollar real estate projects by developing a project management tool to capture financial variance throughout the lifecycle of projects. He also held research and policy positions at the New York City Council and the New York State Senate.

Quamid is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan and spent eight years in the U.S. Marine Corps as a Financial Auditor and Contracts Payment Certifying Official. He also deployed on various naval vessels as part of a Marine Expeditionary Unit, conducting diplomatic engagements across the Asia-Pacific region.

Quamid is a 2018 Social Sector Leadership Diversity Fellow, a 2021 Council of Urban Professionals Fellow, and is currently on the City’s Bid Committee to bring the 2025 Invictus Games to New York City.

He holds an MPA in International Policy and Management from New York University and a Bachelor of Science in Public Affairs and Management from Baruch College. He also earned a “Leading with Finance” certificate from Harvard Business School.

For his extensive work with youth and youth enrichment programs at various organizations, such as the Ronald McDonald House, Quamid was awarded the Presidential Award for Community Volunteer work by President Obama.

In Quamid’s free time he enjoys traveling, especially to East Asia. He also enjoys reading books about history and organizational psychology, volunteering at youth enrichment programs, writing, running and hiking.

Follow Quamid on Twitter