Leadership in New York

Annie Kessler

Senior Vice President and Executive Director for City Year New York

Annie Kessler is a dedicated leader committed to advancing educational equity. She started her career in education as a City Year New York AmeriCorps Member, serving in a 5th grade classroom at PS48X in the South Bronx after receiving a Bachelor of Arts in English at Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland.

Annie’s experiences as an AmeriCorps Member were transformative in her career journey and led her to become a Program Manager and then Director at City Year New York. She led teams of staff and AmeriCorps Members, partnering with 7 schools to support students in improving attendance, social emotional learning, and academics. In addition to focusing on the work in schools, Annie took pride in investing in people, providing coaching, mentorship, and a strong sense of community across all teams and departments.

In 2014, Annie took an opportunity to be the first Program Director at Reading Partners New York, an organization empowering volunteers to provide high-quality literacy tutoring to young students. She spent the next four years building partnerships with schools throughout New York City and helping Reading Partners expand their footprint, their AmeriCorps program, and their public sector funding.

After almost four years of attending Baruch College part time, in 2017, Annie received a master’s in public administration from the Marge School of Public and International Affairs.

Eager to apply her academic studies to real world context, in 2018, Annie returned to City Year New York to lead the site’s work in government relations, capacity building projects, and expanding relationships with other community-based organizations. As the Senior Managing Director of Site Strategy and Chief of Staff, she secured over $6 million annually in public sector funding from NYC Public Schools and other City agencies, directed the compliance, goals and outcomes of all contracts, led the Evaluation and Analytics team, annual budget planning, strategic plans, and hiring for key staff positions.

Annie has been serving as City Year New York’s Interim Executive Director since February 2024.