Paige MacLean is a lecturer at the Yale School of Management and a fellow at the Yale Program on Social Enterprise, Innovation, and Impact. She offers a class at SOM that examines high-impact approaches to philanthropy. Drawing on a wide network of philanthropists, foundation leaders, and philanthropic advisors, the class brings leaders in the field to the classroom to discuss and debate timely issues and case studies. Paige is also the faculty advisor to the Social Impact Consulting Club and the Golub Capital Board Fellows Program, which gives students the opportunity to serve as non-voting members of area nonprofit organizations.
Paige is also an independent advisor to individuals and families who are looking to develop a philanthropic approach that is both personally meaningful and socially impactful. She collaborates with her clients to develop a philanthropic vision and direction, which can take various forms, including traditional philanthropy, impact investing, and other innovative means of creating social change. Leveraging over 20 years of experience in organizational and board leadership, strategy consulting, and fundraising, Paige facilitates meaningful connections between her clients, fellow donors, and high-impact initiatives and leaders tackling today’s most pressing challenges.
She began her career at The Boston Consulting Group and later joined Wellspring Consulting, a mission-driven firm founded by former BCG partners to focus exclusively on nonprofit strategy. From 2010–2021, Paige served as the founder and executive director of AF Accelerate, a division of the Achievement First charter school network. In this role, she was responsible for launching and scaling Achievement First’s “open source” strategy to support traditional districts and charter schools in adapting and adopting the network’s instructional model and practices. Over 11 years, Paige grew AF Accelerate from a pilot project to an independent division that supported over 40,000 students across the country annually, and ultimately spun off as two independent nonprofits, LEAP Educational Consulting and Accelerate Education.
Paige serves as chair of the nominations committee for the Yale School of Management Alumni Advisory Board and sits on the Advisory Board of the Fund for Women and Girls at the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven. She is the past chair of All Our Kin, an organization that has scaled nationally to support high-quality, sustainable family child care businesses. Paige also served on the first open call evaluation panel for Yield Giving, MacKenzie Scott’s foundation, which awarded $640 million to 361 nonprofit organizations.
Paige received her MBA from the Yale School of Management and her BA from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, with a certificate in Afro-American Studies. After graduating from Princeton, she was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to teach in the former East Germany shortly after German reunification.
