Lita Ugarte Pardi

Lita Ugarte Pardi is a nonprofit and philanthropic leader with more than 25 years of experience in organizational development, strategic planning, and community-centered grantmaking. Her work has focused on building the conditions for sustainable growth: developing strategy, strengthening systems, and centering equity and community voice in everything she does.

Most recently, Lita served as Senior Knowledge & Learning Director at PEAK Grantmaking, where she led significant programmatic and conference growth, partnered with the board on strategic planning, and created field-defining resources for grants professionals. Before PEAK, she spent 17 years at the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, ultimately serving as Vice President of Community Impact. There she led the foundation's capacity-building portfolio for more than a decade, supporting nonprofits through growth, restructuring, and leadership transitions, and co-led the foundation's COVID-19 community response initiative that reached hundreds of organizations across the region.

Across every role, Lita has brought a deep commitment to responsive, community-led approaches.

Lita was born in Peru and has lived and worked across the Americas. Fluent in English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese, she brings a multicultural perspective that she hopes will be an asset to MITS's community. She holds a B.A. in French and Spanish Literature from Berry College and is a graduate of the Council on Foundations Career Pathways Program and Leadership Atlanta's LEAD Atlanta program. She serves on the board of redefinED Atlanta and the Hispanic Scholarship Fund's Atlanta Advisory Council.