About me
Monika Kalra Varma is the President & CEO of BoardSource, a globally recognized organization committed to transforming nonprofit governance and leadership. For over thirty years, BoardSource has been at the forefront of nonprofit board leadership, research, and support.
Monika has dedicated her career to community-centered work, guided by the belief that solutions to the most entrenched human rights and social justice challenges are found in the communities most impacted by those challenges. For over twenty years, she has led human rights and social justice organizations..
From 2017-2021, Monika served as the Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area (LCCRSF). Monika and her team partnered with BIPOC communities to advance racial, immigrant, and economic rights. Monika was also the Executive Director of the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Center, the largest provider of pro bono legal services in the District of Columbia serving 20,000 individuals, nonprofit organizations, and small businesses. Additionally, she served on the D.C. Bar’s executive team. As the Director of the Center for Human Rights at the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights - an organization founded in 1968 to carry forward Bobby Kennedy’s unfinished work - Monika advanced human rights through partnerships with social movement leaders around the globe.
She began her career with the Office of the Prosector at the U.N. War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Monika currently serves on the Board of Advisors for the Foundation for System Change and the Steering Committee for Leading Forward.
Monika received her BA in History from the University of California, San Diego, and her juris doctorate from the University of California Davis School of Law. She and her husband find their greatest joy in raising their sixteen-year-old daughter and twelve-year-old twin boys.
