Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Select Publications
Timeline
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JANIS BOWDLER

Takoma Park,MD

Summary

Passionate advocate for racial justice and social change, with a focus on fostering creativity, building and motivating teams, and achieving results. Leadership style centered on collaboration, drawing in diverse and dissenting voices, and developing talent. Adept at navigating complex organizational dynamics and responding to real-time opportunities and challenges, without losing the big picture. Ability to communicate with a variety of audiences, from church basements to executive boardrooms. Deep expertise in economic opportunity fields, place-based interventions, and cross-sector collaborations. Experience working in nonprofit and corporate environments at the local, national, and global levels.

Overview

25
25
years of professional experience

Work History

Senior Fellow

Equis Institute
Washington, DC
07.2025 - Current
  • Establish and advance a Latino-focused policy agenda grounded in Equis' rigorous research on Latino families, community knowledge, and evidence-based solutions that helps Latino families move up the economic ladder and provide for the next generation.
  • Strengthen collaboration across Latino policy ecosystem, connecting research, narrative, and leaders from across the movement to improve financial outcomes for Latino families, businesses, and communities.
  • Shift the narrative to ensure Latino voices shape the conversation on what Latinos need.

Senior Fellow

AmericaFWD
Washington, DC
05.2025 - Current
  • Lead an initiative to harness the power of public investments in infrastructure to drive more broadly shared prosperity. This includes convening experts, practitioners, and advocates from a broad range of disciplines to determine how wealth and assets are built through transportation, housing, clean energy, water, and other public systems, and to explore the best practices for more inclusive creation and retention of assets.
  • Work collaboratively with experts in infrastructure policy design, implementation, and finance at the federal, state, and local levels.
  • Support the development of definitions, priority setting, and a vision for impact set by local leaders.

Counselor for Racial Equity

US Treasury Department
Washington, DC
10.2021 - Current
  • Served as the lead advisor to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary on issues related to racial equity and building an inclusive economy where everyone has an opportunity to thrive and prosper. I created and advanced the strategy for the racial equity agenda. This included providing issue expertise and guidance, and directing a team of policy, program, and operational experts to integrate opportunities to advance economic opportunities for historically marginalized, underinvested people, businesses, and places into core institutional priorities and operations.
  • Established and led the Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility, including hiring, budget management, and operations required to meet the Department's policies, programs, and operating protocols.
  • Wove racial equity considerations into policy implementation efforts within the Department, with partner agencies, Bureau heads, the White House policy councils, and other key Administration partners.
  • Established the Treasury Advisory Committee on Racial Equity, a 25-member federal advisory committee responsible for providing advice and recommendations to the Treasury on a broad set of issues, including tax, financial health, capital access, consumer protection, and community finance policy.
  • Led the Department's multi-billion-dollar efforts to establish public-private partnerships that align mission-driven capital in support of underserved communities, collaborating closely with the Office of the Vice President.
  • Built multi-sector relationships with key stakeholders, influencers, and validators in support of Department priorities. Elevate community intelligence within internal policy decisions.
  • Develop key messaging frameworks, and support the storytelling on the accomplishments of the Treasury Department and the Biden-Harris Administration.
  • Produced signature public events featuring the highest levels of leadership, elected officials, and corporate and philanthropic CEOs.
  • Led liaison to the White House on all racial equity issues.

Foundation President

JPMorgan Chase & Co
07.2013 - Current
  • Lead daily operations of the JPMC Foundation, which is investing $2 billion over five years to increase economic opportunity for vulnerable communities in more than 35 countries. Funding in the US is targeted to solutions that address racial income and wealth disparities.
  • Drive strategy, priority-setting, initiative development, impact targets, and grantmaking. Work with internal teams to develop communications strategies, manage operations and financials, and measure impact.
  • Manage to key outcomes, including annual charitable commitment, talent development, measuring impact of charitable investments, and coordination across teams.
  • Serve on Corporate Responsibility Senior Management Team and advise on the firm-wide diversity strategy.
  • Collaborate with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion department to drive the firm's key objectives to achieve a more diverse and inclusive culture and actualize the firm's $30 billion Racial Equity Commitment to address structural racial inequality within our economy.

Economic Policy Director

UnidosUS, National Council of La Raza
Washington, DC
05.2003 - 07.2013
  • Developed and executed policy change strategies on the foremost economic and asset-building issues facing the Latinx community, including employment, housing, retirement security, and financial health.
  • Served as the primary advisor to the CEO and other institutional officers on economic policy, established a cohesive economic policy agenda, and managed a team of seven and a $1.5 million annual budget.
  • Authored numerous publications, analysis, and congressional testimony to drive policy and practice outcomes that would build wealth and close the racial wealth-divide.
  • Collaborated with other civil rights organizations, coordinating strategy, data, and interventions.

Project Manager

Famicos Foundation
Cleveland, OH
01.2001 - 05.2003
  • Managed daily operations of a $20 million multiphase redevelopment project, including managing pro forma balance sheets, construction bids and project budget.
  • Conducted interviews with residents to incorporate their vision into project planning. Mapped parcels for property acquisition applications.
  • Presented project details at community planning and strategy meetings and staffed community advisory committee.

Education

Master of Science - Urban Policy

Cleveland State University

Bachelor of Arts - Interdisciplinary Social Science

Malone College

Select Publications

  • Building Equitable Cities: How to Drive Economic Mobility and Regional Growth, with Henry Cisneros, former Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and Phillip Patrick, CEO of Urban Land Institute. Washington, DC: JPMorgan Chase & Co and Urban Land Institute, 2017
  • All In: Building the Path to Global Financial Security through Financial Capability and Inclusion, with Lucy Gorham. Washington, DC: JPMorgan Chase & Co and Center for Community Capital, 2014.
  • Housing as a Human Right: Where do Immigrants Stand? with Jose Garcia and Don Kahl in From Foreclosure to Fair Lending: Advocacy, Organizing, Occupy, and the Pursuit of Equitable Credit, Greg Squires and Chester Hartman, ed; Washington, DC: Poverty & Race Research Action Council, 2013.
  • The Foreclosure Generation: The Long-Term Impact of the Housing Crisis on Latino Children and Families, with Roberto Quercia and David Andrew Smith. Washington, DC: NCLR and Center for Community Capital, 2010.
  • Creating a Fair Housing System that Works for Latinos, with Charles Kamasaki, in Fragile Rights within Cities: Government, Housing, and Fairness, John Goering, ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.

Timeline

Senior Fellow

Equis Institute
07.2025 - Current

Senior Fellow

AmericaFWD
05.2025 - Current

Counselor for Racial Equity

US Treasury Department
10.2021 - Current

Foundation President

JPMorgan Chase & Co
07.2013 - Current

Economic Policy Director

UnidosUS, National Council of La Raza
05.2003 - 07.2013

Project Manager

Famicos Foundation
01.2001 - 05.2003

Master of Science - Urban Policy

Cleveland State University

Bachelor of Arts - Interdisciplinary Social Science

Malone College

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