Christopher Murphy

Chris Murphy leads the foundation’s state and local government relations work in the United States.

Before joining the foundation in 2024, Chris’s diverse career included senior positions in the nonprofit and private sectors as well as local and federal government, including vice president of government relations at Georgetown University, chief of staff to Washington, D.C., Mayor Vincent C. Gray, deputy chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and general counsel at Atlantic Media.

Chris founded and led City Year Washington, D.C., where he twice won the award for best City Year program in the country. He also worked as an attorney at Hogan & Hartson (now Hogan Lovells), served on the startup team at AmeriCorps, and worked on Capitol Hill for Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

Chris is an honors graduate of both Harvard University and the Georgetown University Law Center, where he served as an editor on the Georgetown Law Journal. He is a member of the Massachusetts and District of Columbia bar associations as well as the Leadership Greater Washington class of 2010. He was named a Marshall Memorial Fellow by the German Marshall Fund and has served on the board of several national and local nonprofits. Chris currently serves as a commissioner on the D.C. Housing Authority board.