CEO and Co-Founder, SBP (Formerly St.Bernard Project)
Zack directs the strategic vision, marketing, partnership development, and fundraising for the organization, which he co-founded following Hurricane Katrina.
Among the innovative programs at SBP that Zack has designed include: Good Work/Good Pay, a construction training program for returned war veterans, under/unemployed local citizens and citizens recently released from jail; Opportunity Housing, an innovative blight eradicating/affordable housing program that turns blighted properties into well-built affordable housing, while also creating well-paying jobs for struggling community members; and Disaster Resilience and Recovery Lab, which among other things, allows SBP to train other organizations to utilize SBP’s systems and processes.
Zack has been recognized as New Orleanian of the Year and Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project Champion of Justice and he has received the Manhattan Institute Social Innovation Award, an Honorary Doctorate from Muhlenberg College, and a distinguished alumnus award from Washington College of Law.
Zack speaks nationally on a broad array of topics including organizational culture development, high-impact innovation, post-disaster recovery and leadership. His work was featured in Newsweek, US News and World Report, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Politico and Quartz.
Before founding SBP, Zack was an E. Barrett Prettyman Teaching Fellow at the Georgetown Law Center and ran an indigent criminal defense practice in Washington, DC. Zack’s most meaningful victory was freeing a man who served 23 years for a murder he did not commit.
