Elizabeth Méndez Berry is Vice President and Executive Editor of One World, an imprint of Random House in New York. Before joining One World, she worked in social justice philanthropy, where she invested in the arts, journalism and freedom of speech in roles at the Ford Foundation, the Surdna Foundation and the Nathan Cummings Foundation.
She co-founded several philanthropic initiatives, including Critical Minded, which supports cultural critics of color, and the Unicorn Fund, which offers resources to artists and others who have been targeted for speaking out. In her role at the Nathan Cummings Foundation, she also programmed exhibitions including “Dandy Lion,” curated by Shantrelle P. Lewis, “Pasado y Presente: Art After the Young Lords,” curated by Yasmin Ramirez, and “Like the Waters, We Rise: Climate Justice in Print,” curated by Raquel de Anda.
In addition to her work in philanthropy, she is an award-winning writer and editor who writes about culture, gender, criminal justice and politics. She started her U.S. career at Vibe Magazine, and “Love Hurts,” her landmark investigative article on domestic violence in the hip-hop industry, won ASCAP’s Deems Taylor award for music reporting and was included in Da Capo’s Best Music Writing anthology. In his book Decoded, Jay-Z cited one of her essays as an inspiration for his song “Public Service Announcement.” And her Spanish-language oped on street harassment, which appeared in New York’s El Diario, helped spark the country’s first ever city council hearing on street harassment.
Elizabeth’s work can be found on syllabi around the country, and she has spoken at Fordham University, Harvard and Jackson State, among others.
She is on the boards of A Long Walk Home in Chicago and Hedgebrook in Seattle.
