Shavon Arline-Bradley

Rev. Shavon Arline-Bradley serves as the President and CEO of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), marking a historic milestone as the first person to hold this title in the organization’s history. Since taking the helm in March 2023, she has led a three-million-member network into a new era. 

Under her visionary leadership, the Council successfully hosted and executed the Washington, D.C. Freedom to Learn activation in partnership with African American Policy Forum. Central to her legacy is the creation of the Bethune Height Changemakers Pathways, a NCNW signature program designed to bridge the gap between education and industry by providing mentorship and high-level career opportunities to collegiate Black women. Her presidency has also overseen a historic surge in youth engagement, with over one hundred active campus sections established nationwide.

Since taking the helm, some of her milestones are: keynote sermon at the Washington National Cathedral for their annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day commemoration;  delivered a lecture at the Week Seven African American Heritage House Lecture at the prestigious Chautauqua Institute in New York;  youngest person to keynote the Martin Luther King, Jr. Beloved Community Commemorative Service at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, one of 25 women to be named “Women Who Mean Business” by the Washington Business Journal.  

A native of southern New Jersey, she earned both an undergraduate and master’s degrees from Tulane University, graduated from the Samuel Dewitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University with a Master of Divinity and was subsequently ordained. She holds executive certificates from Howard University and Cornell University, in addition to holding two honorary doctorates. 

Rev. Arline-Bradley’s community leadership extends with many roles, but her role as the wife of Andrew Bradley and mother of two children is most important.  She remains grounded by her faith and her family.