Adren Wilson

This is a conversation about the kind of leadership that doesn't show up in a job description — trusting your own voice, holding the people you love accountable, and finding the grace to keep showing up as yourself. Chanda and Adren Wilson have known each other for over a decade, and it shows. Adren Wilson is Vice President, Youth Opportunity Programs and Executive Director of the My Brother's Keeper Alliance at the Obama Foundation, working with boys and young men of color in more than 200 communities across the country. Before that, he was the first Black man to lead Public Allies as a national organization — a role he almost turned down, and the reason he and Chanda first met. In this conversation, Adren and Chanda talk about what real accountability looks like between people who trust each other, what it costs to be "first" in a role no one who looks like you has held before, and the systems that ask young people to carry blame that was never theirs to carry. Adren traces it all back to a childhood in rural Louisiana — and to the mother whose faith and resilience still shape how he leads today. Find us: https://conversationswithchanda.com/ IG @chandasbaker & @conversationswithchanda