Carla Chavez Headshot

Title/Position

Deputy Director/Chief Operating Officer

Department

Administrative Department

Carla Chávez is the Deputy Director/Chief Operating Officer of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, where she helps oversee the day-to-day management of the organization and ensures effective collaboration, systems management, and workflows across departments.

Carla has over ten years of experience in the non-profit sector, having focused mostly on organizational capacity and strategic planning. After Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in 2017, she moved back to the Island to support recovery and reconstruction efforts at Foundation for Puerto Rico, where she served as Chief of Staff and oversaw the proper usage of federally granted funds. She later joined the Puerto Rico Financial Management and Oversight Board as Chief of Staff, where she oversaw the internal operations of the organization tasked with negotiating Puerto Rico's exit from bankruptcy. Prior to her time in Puerto Rico, she worked as Deputy Director for the Seattle non-profit organization Transportation Choices Coalition.

Carla has held board positions at the League of Women Voters of Seattle-King County, Earthshare Washington, YMCA of San Juan, and was a mayoral appointee to the Seattle Transit Advisory Board, acting as Vice-Chair for three years. In 2019, she was named part of the National Association of Latino Asset Builders Peter Garcia Fellowship Class. Carla is passionate about systemic change, advocacy, just economic development, and good governance. She is married to Adam, who is by now an expert phone banker, and is mom to Isaac, 8. Nora, the yellow lab, rounds out the crew. Carla has a degree from the University of Florida in Political Science and Portuguese and a certificate in Non-Profit Management from the University of Washington.