Richard R. Buery, Jr.

Born and raised in the East New York section of Brooklyn, New York, the son of a retired New York City public school teacher and a retired lab manager, Richard R. Buery, Jr. has dedicated his life to improving educational opportunity and life outcomes for young people in America’s most disadvantaged communities.    

In October 2009, Mr. Buery was named the tenth President and Chief Executive Officer of The Children’s Aid Society.  He is the first black leader of Children’s Aid and the youngest since Charles Loring Brace founded the agency in 1853. Children’s Aid is an independent, not-for-profit organization established to serve the children of New York City.  Its mission is to help children in poverty to succeed and thrive. We do this by providing comprehensive supports to children and their families in targeted high-needs New York City neighborhoods. Children’s Aid serves New York’s neediest children and their families with a network of services and programs that support children and their families from before birth through young adulthood.    

Mr. Buery previously co-founded and served as executive director of Groundwork, Inc., a nonprofit organization serving the children and families of Brooklyn public housing developments.  Groundwork was the third nonprofit organization Mr. Buery founded.  While still an undergraduate at Harvard, he co-founded the Mission Hill Summer Program, an enrichment program for children in the Mission Hill Housing Development in the Roxbury section of Boston.  More recently, he co-founded and served as executive director of iMentor, a technology education and mentoring program that each year connects New York City middle and high school students with professional mentors through on-line and face-to-face meetings.  Already one of the largest youth mentoring organizations in New York City, iMentor is currently undergoing a national expansion.   

A graduate of Harvard College and the Yale Law School, Mr. Buery has a background in law, education, and politics.  Prior to founding iMentor, Mr. Buery was a staff attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice. He also served as a law clerk to Judge John M. Walker, Jr. of the Federal Court of Appeals in New York City, as a fifth grade teacher at an orphanage in Bindura, Zimbabwe, and as Chief Political Officer and campaign manager to Kenneth Reeves, the Mayor of Cambridge, Massachusetts.  He has also served as an adjunct lecturer at the Baruch College School of Public Affairs.  

The recipient of many honors and awards, Mr. Buery was a 1992-1993 Michael Clarke Rockefeller Fellow. In 2000 he was named one of Ebony Magazine’s Thirty Leaders of the Future under Thirty, and in 2009, was named one of Crain’s New York Business’ 40 Leaders of the Future under 40 in recognition of his contributions to the life of New York City.   

He has also received the Mary McLeod Bethune Recognition Award from the National Council of Negro Women; the Extraordinary Black Man Award for Humanitarianism from the United Negro College Fund, and the inaugural outstanding alumnus award from the Phillips Brooks House Association at Harvard University.  He has been honored by the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation, the Brooklyn Borough President, and others.  He lives with his wife Deborah, a law professor, and his two sons, Ellis and Ethan.