Tsehaitu “Tubi” Retta
2022 Fellow
VV VISIONARIES
Tubi Retta is a lawyer, social impact strategist, and gender equality advocate passionate about building a powerful movement of multisectoral actors to support and invest in young women around the world. She is currently the deputy director of the Girls Opportunity Alliance, a program of the Obama Foundation founded by Michelle Obama that focuses on empowering adolescent girls globally. In this role, she helps drive the strategy around funding, supporting, and amplifying community-based organizations serving girls.
Previously she served as associate policy director to First Lady Michelle Obama in the White House, where she helped lead Let Girls Learn, a whole-of-government initiative with more than $1 billion dollars in investments to increase access to education for adolescent girls around the world. Retta believes deeply in the power of local solutions and collective action and that educating and empowering girls is among the most strategic and effective investments to solve global challenges and achieve sustainable development goals. She has also worked at the U.S. Department of State on gender equity and initiatives to increase diversity and inclusion of the U.S. diplomatic corps.
Retta serves on the editorial board of the Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society and the advisory board for Girl Rising, a nonprofit media organization that uses storytelling to change the way the world values girls and their education.