Anusha Venkataraman

Anusha Venkataraman is the Managing Director of the Central Providence Opportunities Health Equity Zone (CPO-HEZ), housed within backbone organization One Neighborhood Builders. CPO-HEZ is a collective impact initiative spanning the nine neighborhoods that comprise ZIP codes 02908 and 02909 and guided by the Central Providence Roadmap, a ten-year vision for health and economic equity. Anusha’s career has spanned community development, planning, public policy, political organizing, and the arts. 

Prior to her time with ONB, Anusha served as the Executive Director of the NYC Racial Justice Commission, where she stewarded an historic public process of reviewing the city’s charter through the lens of racial justice, resulting in three ballot initiatives advancing racial equity that were adopted overwhelmingly by NYC voters in November 2022. Anusha also held positions in the NYC Office of the Mayor, including Chief Service Officer and Senior Advisor for Land Use, as well as in the NYC Department of Housing Preservation & Development where she was the Senior Director of Neighborhood Planning & Preservation. She began her career in the nonprofit sector as an AmeriCorps VISTA member at the Steel Yard in Providence and spent five years nurturing arts, activism, and environmental & social justice with El Puente in Brooklyn, NY. She holds a master’s degree in city and regional planning from Pratt Institute and a bachelor’s in international relations from Brown University.