From Roots to Renaissance - Welcoming Our Next Executive Director
Youth Speaks staff and board are excited to share our latest gift with you in the form of an announcement that the search is OVER — we have found our next leader!
Please join us in giving the warmest welcome to liz suk, Executive Director at Youth Speaks.
liz suk is a visionary leader with a long-standing reputation for service, integrity, and transformative change across the Bay Area. For years, liz has been at the forefront of community-centered work: building bridges, advocating for equity, and shaping spaces where young people feel seen, safe, and empowered. Her leadership is grounded in deep relationships, bold thinking, and an unwavering commitment to justice.
“My two amazing children, Luna and Sena, keep me accountable. They remind me every day that I am not infallible, but instead that I can make mistakes like everyone else and make amends. They teach me every day to be honest to myself, that we all have agency to make choices in our lives, and to move with the same self-determination of youth in liberation movements worldwide, now and throughout history.”
- liz suk, Youth Speaks Executive Director
As we celebrate this new chapter, we also recognize what’s at stake. For 30 years, Youth Speaks has been a brave space for truth-telling, a sanctuary where young people have dared to speak what the world too often tries to silence.
We are a critical part of the Bay Area arts ecosystem, where sister organizations have joined us, nurturing culture, protecting safe spaces, and holding our communities together, often against the odds.
That legacy is not just something we inherit; it is something we are called to protect, to deepen, and to fight for. Right now, when so many forces seek to shrink imagination, erase stories, and close doors, our work to hold brave, unapologetic space for youth voice is more urgent than it has ever been. We need you with us.
Now is the time to invest in the organizations that have invested in generations. To protect the spaces that protect our youth. To ensure this legacy doesn’t just survive but grows.
“To our community, our alumni, and everyone who has ever been moved by the power of a young person’s words: this is your moment to lean in. To show up. To invest. To stand alongside the next generation as they write us toward a more just and liberated future. Because when young people are heard, the world changes. And we cannot afford to be quiet now.”
-liz suk, Youth Speaks Executive Director
We are thrilled for the vision and energy liz brings as we continue building platforms for youth voice and narrative change.
Join us. Support the work and be part of what comes next.
