DC, her people, and issues of equity and social justice are in Maya Martin Cadogan’s history, heart, and home. Maya is a proud 5th generation Washingtonian whose great-great grandfather, George Martin, is featured on the cover of “Black Georgetown Remembered”, a book which celebrates the vibrant and beautiful history of what was once a 200 years old thriving black community in the Georgetown and Foggy Bottom neighborhoods of Washington, DC. A product of an excellent education and public policy programs targeted to serve low-income families, Maya was raised by a single mother from Harlem and the Bronx who is a lifelong educator and born to a native Washingtonian father who was an attorney representing the rights of taxicab drivers in the city. She currently resides in DC’s Ward 6 with her husband James Cadogan, a civil rights attorney and former Obama administration official who is the Vice President of Criminal Justice at Arnold Ventures, where he leads the team’s pretrial justice portfolio focusing on bail reform, court diversion, prosecution, and jails.
Prior to founding PAVE in April 2016 with an all-parent board of directors, Maya was an Entrepreneur in Residence with New Schools Venture Fund from November 2015 to April 2016. Previously, Maya served as the Chief of Staff at Achievement Prep, a public charter school network located in Ward 8, where she focused on developing and leading the organizational infrastructure as the network grew, as the Director of Policy and Special Programs for Center City PCS, another DC charter network with six campuses throughout DC, as a Senior Program Manager for Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO), a non-profit that places students of color in corporate financial internships, and as an Assistant Director of Admissions for her alma mater, Dartmouth College, focused on growing the number of racially underrepresented students at the college. Maya received her bachelor’s degree in Sociology and History from Dartmouth College and a Master’s of Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
