Anisha Carter

About Anisha Carter

I help mission-driven leaders sustain and scale their impact.The first five years of my career were spent building products at companies like Intuit and TaxAct. At Intuit, I learned the foundations of product management building B2B products and became an Innovation Catalyst, leading design thinking workshops across the organization. At TaxAct, I led the development of Xpert Help, a virtual tax assistance platform that generated millions in revenue and became the foundation for the company\'s broader assistance offering.Leading talented teammates to deliver purposeful products was energizing, but I wasn\'t fulfilled. I wanted to leverage my talents for the communities that needed innovative solutions most.I grew up in King and Queen County, Virginia, where my mom raised five kids on a $25K salary. My community was low-income, my high school was unaccredited, and career prospects were limited. Financial instability didn\'t just limit resources—it shaped what people believed was possible.In 2019, I started the Spark Mentorship and Scholarship program for students in my hometown—testing whether I could create pathways that didn\'t exist when I was in high school. That experience taught me something important: good intentions without sustainable infrastructure don\'t create lasting change.To better understand impact sustainability, I pursued my MBA at Stanford\'s Graduate School of Business, where I focused on social innovation and started testing whether corporate product methods could work for mission-driven organizations. During my MBA summer, I founded Lytework, a wellness marketplace for underserved BIPOC communities and helped redesign a business planning app for low-income entrepreneurs at a Bay-area based nonprofit.Currently, I serve as Chief of Staff at Community Economic Defense Project, where I\'ve led the development of an AI-powered case management platform that streamlines housing assistance applications and includes fraud detection capabilities. I\'ve also helped launch a loan fund, providing working capital to cash-constrained nonprofits.I\'m based in Oakland and always open to connecting with people thinking about how mission-driven organizations can scale their impact and build healthier, more sustainable cultures.

Experience

1. Chief of Staff

   Community Economic Defense Project

   Sep 2024 — Present

   Collaborate with the CEO and executive leadership team to develop and execute the organization’s strategic goals and priorities.Facilitate leadership retreats, meetings, and planning sessions to ensure alignment, innovation, and collaboration across teams.Act as a liaison across departments to streamline communication, foster collaboration, and enhance organizational impact.Oversee special projects, including new community development initiatives.Monitor organizational performance against strategic goals, identifying opportunities for process improvements and innovation.Serve as a key point of contact for internal and external stakeholders, ensuring the efficient flow of information and alignment on priorities.

Education

• Hampton University

  Bachelor of Science (BS), Computer Information Systems

  2013

• Chesapeake Bay Governor's School

  Environmental Science

  2010 — 2013

• Stanford University Graduate School of Business

  Master of Business Administration - MBA, Non-Profit/Public/Organizational Management

Skills

• Python
• Event Planning
• Cross Functional Relationships
• Research
• Oral & Written Communication Skills
• Management Consulting
• Microsoft Office
• Project Management
• Customer Service
• Programming
• Sharepoint
• Program Management
• Rapid Prototyping
• Data Mining
• Quantitative Research
• Wrike
• Systems Engineering
• Systems Design
• Product Management
• Cross-Functional Collaborations
• Marketing Strategy
• Communication
• User Stories
• Social Media
• Social Networking
• Microsoft Powerpoint
• User Research
• Teaching
• Time Management
• Agile Application Development
• Aed Certified
• Microsoft Word
• Data Migration
• C#
• Microsoft Excel
• Powerpoint
• Computer Science
• Cpr Certified
• Management
• Public Speaking