Mekaelia is a human, cultivated in Brooklyn, who recently joined the Ballmer Group as the director of Black Family Economic Mobility. She previously served as the director of the Inclusive Economies program at the Surdna Foundation overseeing a national grantmaking portfolio of +$9MM funding entrepreneurship and economic development. In addition to her strategy areas, she has advocated within philanthropy to increase investments for racial equity through advising roles with several funder collectives.

Before joining Surdna, Mekaelia was a director of Corporate Giving at Prudential Financial. She managed over $10 million in grants focused on economic and community development and was a lead in executing Prudential's corporate anchor strategy in Newark, New Jersey. She organized its founding investments in the Newark Community Street Team, supported narrative change strategies on racial equity, managed cross-department support for citywide engagement on young Black men, and helped develop Newark-focused diverse supplier initiatives, with a focus on BIPOC entrepreneurs.

She has spent nearly twenty years at the intersection of public and private systems, building movements within institutions and developing and executing programs that bring capital and resources to advance inclusion. She is an alumnus of several competitive fellowships.

As a proud graduate of public education, Mekaelia received a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Hunter College, and a master’s in Public Administration from Baruch College as a National Urban Fellow. She spends her free time cycling and roller-skating through NYC and working on her craft as an aspiring speculative fiction writer.