Alma Powell
Chair, America's Promise - The Alliance for Youth

Alma Powell is chair of the board of America's Promise - The Alliance for Youth, whose mission is to mobilize people from every sector of American life to build the character and competence of young people. A member of the boards of several other educational, cultural, charitable, and civic organizations, Powell is vice chair of the board of trustees of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and advisory board chair of the Pew Center for Civic Change.

From 1989 to 2000, she chaired the National Council of the Best Friends Foundation, an organization dedicated to improving the lives of young girls.

Powell has received a number of honors, including an Honorary Doctor of Human Letters from Emerson College, the Pew Partnership for Civic Change’s Civic Change Award, Washingtonian magazine’s Washingtonian of the Year designation, and a Leadership Award from the Women's Center in Vienna, Virginia.

In 2003, she published two children's books, My Little Wagon and America's Promise.

Born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, Powell graduated from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, then studied speech pathology and audiology at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. She worked as staff audiologist for the Boston Guild for the Hard of Hearing.

Powell has been married to General Colin Powell since 1962. She spent 33 years raising a family and accompanying her husband on his military assignments in the United States and overseas. While her husband was stationed at the Pentagon, Alma Powell served as Army liaison to the National Red Cross, as part of a team of volunteer consultants from the military services. During General Powell's tenure as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, she was adviser to the Red Cross of the Military District of Washington. Most recently, during her husband's tenure as the 65th Secretary of State, Alma Powell was honorary president of the Associates of the American Foreign Service Worldwide. She also sat on the advisory board of the Hospitality and Information Service and was an honorary member of the Department of State Fine Arts Committee.