CCJ Directory

As Senior Director, Yariela Kerr-Donovan focuses on workforce development programs for community adults, youth, and current employees of Johns Hopkins Medicine. She has served as a leader in the healthcare, retail, higher education, and hospitality industries. She is a member of the Human Resources team for HopkinsLocal, an anchor institution economic inclusion initiative. She also serves as chair of the Baltimore Workforce Development Board.

Ms. Kerr-Donovan speaks to various public and private sector organizations on workforce development, the engagement of persons with a criminal background, incumbent worker training and youth development and serves on a variety of re-entry, workforce development and youth development boards. She partners with the NAACP’s One Million Jobs Campaign. She has served as co-chair of the Baltimore Workforce Development Board’s (BWDB) Youth Committee and is a member of the Baltimore Integration Partnership and the Democracy Collaborative, a national organization focused on healthcare anchor organizations impacting economic inclusion around the country. She is a member of the Baltimore Alliance for Careers in Healthcare (BACH), a healthcare intermediary focused on training adults for careers in healthcare.

She has served on Vera Institute’s Pathways Project national advisory board and is a member of the ACCE Smart Justice Taskforce. She is also a member of the Volunteers of America Residential Re-Entry Center’s, Center for Urban Families/STRIVE, Greater Baltimore Committee Second Chance advisory boards/committees. Ms. Kerr-Donovan serves as a Governor-appointed member of the Correctional Education Council, co-chaired by Maryland Secretaries of the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation and Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, and has served on a Governor appointed Collateral Consequences Workgroup. She has served as a lecturer and director of minority affairs at Cornell University, where she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees and helped establish the National Society of Minority Hoteliers.