BUSSW Alum Ricardo Neal, President and Chief Executive Officer of We Will All Rise, Named 2025 Commencement Speaker
Ricardo Neal (MSW ‘99), a BU School of Social Work (BUSSW) alum, and current president and chief executive officer of We Will All Rise, a nationally recognized organization focused on improving life outcomes for young men of color across communities throughout the country (Atlanta, Georgia; Baltimore, Maryland; Boston and Lawrence, Massachusetts; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin) will be the featured speaker at this year’s BUSSW commencement ceremony for the Class of 2025.
For nearly 30 years, Neal has served in numerous leadership and governance roles within the education, philanthropic, and advocacy sectors and has led community change work locally, nationally, and internationally. Throughout his career, he has consistently focused on serving and empowering people in under-resourced communities. When asked about his work and what has motivated him to lead a life of service to others, he shares, “my parents instilled a set of core community values in all eight of their children and while achieving success and attaining privilege through the course of my life and career, I simply could not ignore my responsibility to foster and create opportunities for others.”
A native of Jamaica, Neal takes pride in his upbringing and roots in Lawrence, Mass., where he attended public schools and earned his college degrees at local Boston universities. He is widely respected for his deep commitment to and connection with people he has impacted within the various roles he has held in his over two and half decades of service.
Neal began his career of leadership and service at the Boston Public Health Commission immediately after graduate school where he managed HIV/AIDS funding. In his early career, he worked with a wide range of organizations throughout his Boston and Lawrence communities, including the Lawrence Human Rights Commission, Heart of Boston Scholarship Foundation, and the Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries. He joined Haymarket People’s Fund in 2002 and served as president of the board for four years, where he helped restructure the organization through its anti-racist efforts and guided the organization during the financial crisis of the late 2000s; Neal continues his support by serving on Haymarket’s finance committee today. He joined the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition board to focus on advocacy for immigrant and refugee rights across Mass.; played an active role in education reform through Boston’s Public Schools’ High School Renewal Working Group; and was the founding chair of the Multicultural Outreach Drop-out Collaborative — an effort to reduce the dropout rate and re-engage students of color in public education. Neal also served as executive director and director of development for Boston’s historic Freedom House.
After moving to Washington, DC, and Baltimore, and before founding We Will All Rise in 2020, Neal was the director of innovation and strategy at The Literacy Lab where he led the national expansion of the Leading Men Fellowship, an initiative designed to expose young men of color to careers in education. He also served nearly six years at Eastern Senior High School in Washington, DC, the second-largest comprehensive public high school in the District of Columbia, where he held several positions before rising to director of strategy and logistics. Neal has served as board chair of LearnServe International, supporting the organization’s effort to spur youth entrepreneurship and global activism, and was co-lead for Baltimore City’s Boys and Young Men of Color Working Group. Most recently, Neal launched the Propel Agency, a firm specializing in non-profit capacity building and executive coaching.
Neal has won numerous awards for his exemplary work, including the Hubie Jones Service Alumni Award from BUSSW, the Distinguished Alumni Service Award from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the Rubenstein Award for Highly Effective School Staff from the District of Columbia Public Education Fund, and LearnServe International Civic Champion Award. He is a contributing author in the book, We Be Lovin’ Black Children: Learning to Be Literate About the African Diaspora (Myers Education Press, 2021).
Neal earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a master’s degree in social work from BUSSW. He lives in Baltimore with his wife and two children.
The BUSSW 2025 Commencement ceremony will be held Thursday, May 15, 2025, at 4:00 PM at the Walter Brown Arena at Boston University. Graduates will include students from all MSW programs (Charles River campus, Off-Campus, Worcester Hybrid and the Online program) and doctoral candidates.
More details on the BUSSW ceremony can be found on the school website.