team

Adria Finch (she/her)

Interim Global Chief of Staff

Adria is the Interim Global Chief of Staff at the Centre for Public Impact.

She has been part of the team at CPI since 2021.

Adria Finch has BSc from Ithaca College, where she studied physiology. She then went on to study Biomechanics at East Carolina University, where she earned her MSc. Finally, Adria received her MBA from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Most of Adria’s academic work has been in the scientific field but she took her love of science and applied it to government work. She always approaches work by using the ‘scientific method’.

During her time as Chief Innovation Officer at the City of Syracuse, Adria led a project changed the way the delinquent tax letters looked,. They handwrote “You must read this! -Martha” on the envelopes. This resulted in the city collecting $1.5 million in back taxes, bringing back hundreds of people from tax delinquency.

At CPI, she has enjoyed leading on the i-teams programme, where her team worked directly with six cities to develop innovation sustainability plans to help ensure that their innovation function worked well for their own city. Internally, she loved working on the North America Strategy, redefining the global values, streamlining processes, and increasing transparency for the rest of the staff.

Adria dedicates a lot of her time to work related to Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, which is a rare, muscle-wasting disease that her son lives with. She does advocacy work, partners on academic studies and educates people about the disease in order to encourage advancements in science.

In her leisure time, Adria loves to travel, ride her bike and eat good food. Her perfect day would be riding her bike around town with her children, stopping at local cafes, the farmers’ market, and hopping in the lake.