Maria Flynn has had a longstanding commitment to workforce policy and is a national authority on the role of technology in the labor market, career pathways for learners, workers underserved by the education system, and employer engagement. She has testified on workforce system reform before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. Maria also was named to the Forbes 50 Over 50: Impact list for 2022, which features influential women in the business, legal, philanthropic, and nonprofit sectors and beyond; Women’s Edge; and The Boston Globe Magazine as CEO of one of the top 100 Women-Led Businesses in Massachusetts, most recently in 2022.
Under her leadership, Jobs for the Future (JFF) has acquired the Employment Technology Fund, and operating under JFF Ventures, its impact investing arm for funds focuses exclusively on start-ups using emerging technologies to improve economic advancement opportunities for workers in low-wage jobs.
Before joining JFF in 2007, Maria was a member of the federal government’s Senior Executive Service. In the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration, she oversaw the development of policies for training programs serving young people, supervised the agency’s research and evaluation strategy, and managed the development of its $12 billion annual budget.