About Nicole

Recognized by Fortune Magazine as one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders, Dr. C. Nicole Mason is President/CEO of Future Forward Women, a legislative exchange and policy network committed to building women’s political, economic, and social power and influence in the U.S. and globally.

Nicole was named one of Glamour Magazine’s 100 Influential Women Leaders and Washingtonian Magazine’s 500 Most Influential Policy Leaders. She also won the highly competitive New Executive Award from the Open Society Foundations and was honored as a Thrive leader by the Kresge Foundation. Additionally, she is an inaugural Ascend Fellow at the Aspen Institute in Washington, D.C. 

Nicole delivered a dynamic and well-received TED Talk on The Gift of Being Difficult and the Power of Disruption.

Before Future Forward Women, she served as the President/CEO of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), one of the major inside-the-Beltway think tanks in Washington, D.C.  Dr. Mason was the youngest person and woman of color to lead the organization. She also led the Women of Color Policy Network at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, the nation’s only research and policy center focused on women of color at a nationally ranked school of public administration.

For the past two decades, Dr. Mason has spearheaded research on issues related to economic security, pay equity, poverty, women’s issues, entitlement reforms, policy formation and political participation among women and communities of color, and racial equity.

At the start of the pandemic, The New York Times recognized her for coining the term ‘shecession’ to describe the disproportionate impact of employment and income losses on women.

Dr. Mason is the author of Born Bright: A Young Girl’s Journey from Nothing to Something in America (St. Martin’s Press) and has written hundreds of articles on women, poverty, and economic security. Her writing and commentary have been featured in the New York Times, MSNBC, CNN, NBC, CBS, the Washington Post, Marie Claire, the Progressive, ESSENCE, Bustle, BIG THINK, Miami Herald, Democracy Now, and numerous NPR affiliates, among others.

Nicole serves on the boards of All Our Kin, the Jeremiah Program, and the Delores Barr Weaver Policy Center.

She splits her time between Brooklyn, New York, and Chevy Chase, Maryland, where she lives with her twins Charli and Parker, and dog, Sofia.

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