A multi-talented national leader in public health, policy, and interagency collaboration, Kareemah Abdullah joined Insight as Chief Program and Operating Officer (CPOO) in December 2022. The Chief Program and Operating Officer leads a team of program, finance, and human resource professionals to ensure successful execution of the Insight Center’s strategic, programmatic, and operational goals. One of the first initiatives Abdullah is spearheading for the Insight Center is the Center’s Institute for Equity and Justice Acceleration.

Abdullah has raised and leveraged more than one billion dollars from government and private resources. She created the largest training system for community coalition development in the Executive Office of the President’s White House Office of National Drug Control Policy’s and the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America’s organizational history. She also developed the National Coalition Academy™ and the National Youth Leadership Initiative™, which have trained more than 500,000 individuals and their communities. This population-level behavioral change system was used throughout the United States, its territories, tribal nations and globally in 25 countries. Her work is published in the Journal of Community Psychology, and the Institute of Medicine, National Academies Press.

As a global consultant who has worked on four continents, Abdullah’s trademark is solutions through innovation, service, self-expression, leadership, and laughter. In addition to being the mother of four dynamic daughters, she is a 2022 Women Doing Big™ Honoree, Internationally Certified Prevention Specialist (ICPS), visionary and thought leader.

We are extremely pleased that Kareemah has joined the Insight Center at such a pivotal time of the organization’s evolution.  She brings a depth of experience in social cultural issues, expertise in creating, expanding and transforming programs and is a bridge builder who is sensitive to the unique nuances of coalition building within diverse communities,” said Roberto Barragan, interim Chair, Insight Center.

Abdullah earned a degree in Business Management with a concentration in finance and marketing from Wilberforce University, the nation’s first private HBCU owned and operated by people of African descent. Her International Prevention Specialists Certification was conferred by the International Certification & Reciprocity Consortium Board.