Michael Wotorson

Michael S. Wotorson is a government affairs and philanthropy professional with a deep and abiding commitment to democracy, economic growth, social justice, international development, and distributed leadership. With a career spanning three decades, Wotorson possesses a broad range of progressive experiences in leading programmatic initiatives, evaluating program success, supporting leaders, and advocating for policy and systems change at multiple levels. Wotorson is a recognized expert in developing technical assistance and support strategies and building local and cross-national coalitions united in support of shared objectives.

Wotorson is the Founder and CEO of Strategic Edge Business & Investment Advisory LLC, a full-service management consulting practice dedicated to working with a variety of institutions and mission-driven organizations to strengthen operational capacity in areas such as leadership development, customer engagement improvement, and building resilient institutional cultures that support sustainable growth. In Liberia, StrategicEdge blends international best practices with local contextual realities in the financial, governmental, and philanthropic sector, with a strong emphasis on building leadership accountability, customer trust, and ethical governance.

Most recently, Wotorson served as National Program Director at the Schott Foundation for Public Education, a US-based national philanthropic intermediary focused on supporting movement building, cross-sector collaboration, and strengthening public education narratives to help raise the national consciousness around opportunity gaps in support of a sustainable democracy.  At Schott, Wotorson coordinated foundation support to over forty grantee/partners and four national alliances representing over 300 organizations engaged in progressive organizing and strategic campaigns to build a multi-racial democracy. Wotorson also directed a national policy and research collaborative at Schott designed to equip grassroots advocacy strategies with research-based evidence practices.

Wotorson also previously served as a Senior Community Impact Officer with the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving (HFPG), the largest philanthropy in the State of Connecticut with over $1bn in assets. At HFPG, Wotorson managed grant making strategies and outreach activities in several strategic areas including public education, gun violence reduction, and community safety, and faith-based initiatives. Specifically, Wotorson directed HFPG’s support for the Hartford Public Schools District, the Hartford Partnership for Student Success, the Hartford Community Safety Coalition, and the greater Hartford Faith-Based Community Engagement Collaborative.

Also in Liberia, Wotorson led strategic communications and national outreach for the former OIC International, on a USAID-funded food and economic security initiative known as Investing for Business Expansion (IBEX). The IBEX project was designed to help rural farmers and agricultural cooperatives transition into commercially bankable enterprises as a post-conflict strategy for capitalizing on the potential of developing Liberia’s agricultural sector. Following his tenure with IBEX, Wotorson was recruited to serve as Chairman/CEO of the National Investment Commission (NIC) for the Republic of Liberia. During his time at the NIC, Wotorson served as the coordinating manager for the Inter-Ministerial Concessions Committee which assessed and concluded all national concession agreements in the country. He went on to direct the reforming of several key investment incentive protocols designed to aggressively attract foreign direct investment to the nation, and he led the 147-person agency through a strategic re-branding process. As Chairman/CEO of the NIC, Wotorson also led and concluded an agreement establishing the Liberia Cocoa Corporation, the nation’s only 100% Liberian owned agricultural concession.

Michael Wotorson began his professional career as a higher education professional at the Central Missouri State University.  Later, Wotorson held a joint position between the American Association of State Colleges & Universities (AASCU) and the National Association of State Universities & Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC). At AASCU/NASULGC Wotorson managed federal policy analysis and representation strategies for public and urban/metropolitan servings colleges and universities across the United States. Continuing a leadership tradition in the education space, Wotorson was the inaugural Executive Director of the Campaign for High School Equity (CHSE), a special project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors supported exclusively by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. CHSE was a national coalition comprising of organizations like the National Urban League, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the National Council of La Raza, the National Urban League, and several others.

A 1985 graduate of the St. Patrick’s High School in Monrovia Liberia, Wotorson holds a BA and MA in Political Science, with an emphasis on comparative political and economic systems from the University of Missouri-Columbia.