Sarita Gupta

Sarita Gupta is a social justice activist, strategist, and philanthropic leader with a career focused on advancing the rights and dignity of working people. Gupta serves as vice president of U.S. programs at the Ford Foundation, overseeing the foundation's domestic initiatives, including Civic Engagement and Government, Creativity and Free Expression, Future of Work(ers), Technology and Society, Disability Rights, and Gender, Racial, and Ethnic Justice. She joined the foundation as director of the Future of Work(ers) program, bringing more than two decades of experience in labor rights, collective action, and workplace advocacy.

Gupta began her involvement in the labor movement during her college years, serving as president of the United States Student Association, a grassroots legislative student organization. During her tenure, she contributed to the development of the Student Labor Action Project, a collaboration between Jobs With Justice and the United States Student Association. Gupta later held leadership roles at Jobs With Justice for 20 years, including executive director, where she led a network of more than 30 labor and community coalitions. Under her leadership, Jobs With Justice contributed to wage increases for 10 million low-income workers in New York and California, secured overtime and wage protections for two million home-care workers, and supported updates to overtime regulations affecting 12.5 million workers.

Gupta has played a significant role in global labor rights campaigns, including the Asia Floor Wage Alliance, a coalition advocating for higher wages in the garment industry, and the United Workers Congress, which focuses on improving labor standards for low-wage workers. She co-founded Caring Across Generations with Ai-jen Poo, a national coalition of caregivers and care recipients dedicated to supporting caregiving through policy and cultural change. Throughout her career, Gupta has worked at the intersection of workers' rights, immigrants' rights, global justice, racial justice, and women's rights.

Gupta's work has been recognized in media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Politico, and The Hill, and on MSNBC and Al Jazeera America. She is a Hunt Alternatives Fund Prime Movers Fellow and a graduate of the Rockwood Leadership Training Program. Gupta has received several awards, including the National Women's Law Center Annual Leadership Award, the Frances Perkins Open Door Award, the Mount Holyoke College Alumnae Achievement Award, and Corporate Ethics International's BENNY Award. She serves on the boards of the Labor Network for Sustainability, Institute for Policy Studies, United States Student Association Foundation, All Above All, School of Labor and Urban Studies Foundation at CUNY, and WILL Empower. Her experience in organizing, coalition-building, and policy advocacy positions her as a leading voice on the future of work, labor rights, and collective action.