FY26 A.I. Keynote: Resilience, Belonging, and the Beloved Community
Sponsored by
Nature doesn’t fragment; it weaves. But we have absorbed invisible messages, passed down through institutions, the built environment, and culture, that tell us belonging is zero sum. That there is not enough. That community must be earned, guarded, rationed. This keynote asks what happens when we stop believing that, and start building the conditions where connection can take root for everyone.
Imari Paris Jeffries
Executive Director
Embrace Boston
Imari K. Paris Jeffries, Ph.D., is President and CEO of Embrace, an arts, culture, and community organization advancing belonging through justice. His work begins with a simple premise: cities are shaped not only by policy and economics, but by story. By monument. By silence. By who is remembered, who is centered, and who is made peripheral to the promise of democracy. Under his leadership, Embrace has grown into a civic force committed to reshaping public memory as public policy.
Before leading Embrace, Imari served as Executive Director of Parenting Journey, Chief Executive Officer of the Italian Home for Children, Chief Operating Officer of Jumpstart, a senior leader at Boston Rising, and Executive Director of Friends of the Children Boston.
A dedicated civic leader, Imari serves as a Trustee of the University of Massachusetts System and UMass Global, and on the boards of Boston Ballet and the GBH Advisory Board. He has also served on the Commonwealth’s Black Advisory Commission and the City of Boston’s Black Men and Boys Commission, contributing to policy conversations at the intersection of equity and institutional reform.
Imari has been recognized among Boston Magazine’s 100 Most Influential Bostonians and the Boston Business Journal’s Power 50. He is a recipient of the Mel King Social Innovator Award, has received an honorary doctorate from Cambridge College, and has served as the Shabbat Tzedek MLK speaker at Temple Israel, among other honors. A four- time graduate of the University of Massachusetts Boston, where he earned his Ph.D., Imari is also a United States Army veteran. He lives in Boston with his family, committed to building a city where belonging is not aspirational language but shared civic practice.