Tracy Palandjian joined the Surdna Foundation Board in 2014. She is CEO and co-founder of Social Finance, a national impact finance and advisory nonprofit that builds innovative partnerships and investments to measurably improve lives. Since 2011, Social Finance has pioneered impact investments including the Social Impact Bond and the Career Impact Bond to mobilize capital at scale and deliver sustainable impact in communities across the U.S.  

Prior to Social Finance, Tracy served as Managing Director at The Parthenon Group for 11 years, where she established and led its nonprofit practice and worked with foundations and nongovernmental organizations to accomplish their missions in the U.S. and globally. Tracy also worked at Wellington Management Company and McKinsey & Company. 

Tracy has over a decade of experience reimagining the role of the capital markets in enabling social progress. She is co-author of “Investing for Impact: Case Studies Across Asset Classes” and serves as vice chair of the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance, a trustee of the Global Steering Group on Impact Investing, and a trustee of the Barr Foundation. She is also an independent director of Affiliated Managers Group (NYSE: AMG) and a director at both The Boston Foundation and Mass General Brigham. 

Tracy is a frequent speaker and writer on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing, impact investing, social innovation and results-oriented policy making, having been covered in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Economist, TIME, Institutional Investor, and Forbes.  

A native of Hong Kong, Tracy is fluent in Cantonese and Mandarin. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College with a bachelor’s degree in economics and holds a master’s degree with high distinction from Harvard Business School, where she was a Baker Scholar. 

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