Lydia Stazen

Lydia Stazen is a globally recognized leader and subject matter expert with two decades of experience across policy organizations, public-private partnerships, and university systems. She is widely regarded for her strengths in strategy, stakeholder engagement, cross-sector collaboration, policy and systems change, and business development. She currently serves as director of policy operations for Chapin Hall, where she provides executive leadership to the policy team and oversees day-to-day operations related to the policy portfolio.

Before joining Chapin Hall, Stazen served as the executive director of the Ruff Institute of Global Homelessness, where she partnered with multi-lateral institutions, governments, and community-based organizations around the world to apply evidence-based policies and practices to prevent and reduce homelessness. During her tenure, IGH secured the first-ever United Nations (UN) policy resolutions and reports on homelessness, conducted an independent evaluation of its global place-based homelessness initiative, and significantly scaled its technical cooperation partnerships.

Stazen brings a track record of transforming enterprises by aligning strategic vision with operational excellence in the service of policy and systems change. She's served in executive leadership roles at the City Colleges of Chicago, All Chicago Making Homelessness History, and Women Employed. In these roles, she led multi-million dollar business development efforts, expanded and strengthened community partnerships, spearheaded collaborative policy coalitions, and restructured internal operational systems to increase efficiency and impact.

Stazen’s leadership extends to national and global platforms. She serves as an advisor to HRH Prince William’s Homewards initiative of the Royal Foundation. She has served as a member of the US Department of Housing & Urban Development’s Higher Ed Think Tank and the UN Scientific Committee for the UN Secretary-General’s 2023 report on homelessness. She also chaired the UN NGO Working Group to End Homelessness and was a founding editorial board member of the International Journal on Homelessness.

Stazen holds her Master's in public policy from DePaul University, is a certified fundraising executive, and a 2022 Public Voices Fellow with the Op-Ed Project.