Frederick A. Davie

Frederick Davie is Senior Strategic Advisor to the President at Union Theological Seminary, where he had served as Executive Vice President for a decade. As Senior Strategic Advisor, he provides counsel on public programming, racial justice and racial equity, interfaith relations, and social justice and community engagement. Mr. Davie is also a Senior Fellow at Interfaith America (formerly IFYC). He also serves as a member of the board of the Interfaith Faith Center of New York. Mr. Davie was appointed by Governor Kathy Hochul, and confirmed by the Independent Review Committee, to the New York State Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government, where he serves as Chair. He is completing his second term as a Commissioner of USCIRF and was appointed by the Majority Leader of the US Senate Charles Schumer.
 
Mr. Davie served on President Barack Obama’s transition team, performing agency reviews for faith-based and community initiatives, and accepted an appointment by President Obama to the White House Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. As a member of the White House Council, he provided counsel on strategies for more effective partnerships between federal agencies and community and faith organizations. Mr. Davie provided leadership for the inclusion of non-traditional families and marginalized populations in policy formation. Mr. Davie accepted an invitation from President Biden and Vice President Harris to participate in the National Inauguration Worship Service following the Presidential Inauguration. 

Mr. Davie has extensive experience as a faith leader with travel abroad. His early travel included Presbyterian delegations to Nicaragua and Zimbabwe in the late 1980’s. While leading faith-based community development for The Ford Foundation, he held consultations with faith groups in South Africa, Brazil and the Philippines. In his work with the Arcus Foundation, he consulted with faith leaders in Kenya and Germany. He has visited Tibet and spent time with leaders there who were concerned about “show Buddhism” promoted by the government. He led a group of faculty and staff of Union Theological Seminary to Senegal to lay the foundation for joint programming between the seminary and a university in Senegal. Mr. Davie also led a fact finding delegation to Nigeria for USCIRF and attended the Freedom of Religion or Belief Ministerial in the UK. He traveled to Israel with the Union of Reform Judaism and African American civil sector leaders. His international travel also includes Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Peru, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Mexico, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Wales, Botswana and Zambia. 
 
He has long been an active member of the New York City community through service as Chair of the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), the nation’s largest independent civilian oversight of a police department; a member of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Interfaith Advisory Council; and a number of leadership roles in public administration for the City of New York, including Deputy Borough President of Manhattan,  Chief of Staff to the Deputy Mayor for Community and Public Affairs, and Chief of Staff to the President of the NYC Board of Education.
 
Mr. Davie holds a B.A. in Political Science from Greensboro College ’78, Dean’s List and the Harold H. Hutson Award recipient, and a member of the Board of Trustees. He also holds an M.Div. from Yale Divinity School ’82, where he was a Benjamin E. Mays Fellow of The Fund for Theological Education and President of Yale Black Seminarians. He is also a recipient of Yale Divinity School’s Distinguished Alumnus Award for Community Service. Davie was also a Charles H. Revson Fellow at Columbia University, ’90.