Irene Shih is CEO of Minds Matter Bay Area (MMBay) in California. She joined MMBay as its first full-time CEO in 2019, returning to her hometown roots in the Bay Area. For 20 years, Irene has served students in low-income communities — previously as a middle and high school classroom teacher in Arizona, a strategic advisor to superintendents in large urban school districts like Boston Public Schools, and a thought leader on state-level education policy in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Irene is a corps member alumna of Teach For America, holds an M.P.P. in Social & Urban Policy from Harvard Kennedy School, and completed a B.A. in English Literature and Women's Studies from U.C. Berkeley.

As CEO of MMBay, Irene leads a 300-student and 400-volunteer strong community to foster a world-class educational environment that nurtures generational impact on high-school students by cultivating transformational relationships between students and an ecosystem of volunteer mentors. Since assuming the position in 2019, Irene has led the chapter through its expansion from San Francisco into San Jose.

Irene regularly writes and speaks on leadership practices and higher education topics, such as building volunteer culture and the impact of college undermatching on low-income students, and has collaborated with SxSW, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, Nonprofit Quarterly Magazine, and a diverse set of podcasts.