Episode #50: Jodi Hill-Lilly
Welcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy.
Child welfare agency leadership emerges from the productive tension between bold vision and effective execution.
A vision with no delivery mechanism is empty rhetoric. Precision engineering of the execution system without a north star is rudderless technocracy.
Today’s guest captures this in one of her favorite quotes from William Sloane Coffin, Jr.: “It’s one thing to say ‘let justice roll down like mighty waters,’ and quite another to work out the irrigation system.”
Jodi Hill-Lilly spent over three decades working in Connecticut’s child welfare agency, rising from direct service to commissioner. In 2025, she joined the Doris Duke Foundation as Program Director for Child Well-being.
We talked about what she learned about leadership during her time in Connecticut, how those lessons now shape the way she is guiding Doris Duke’s OPT-In for Families initiative, and where she sees the future of child welfare policy heading.
Particularly compelling are her insights into how leaders navigate power and politics, and why, at a certain level of leadership, neither is something you can opt out of.
