Our Team

Helen Forbes Fields

President & CEO

As a lifelong advocate for Cleveland, Helen Forbes Fields has the experience, strategic thinking, and resilience to continue our organization’s momentum toward true racial and gender equity.

Forbes Fields previously served as Executive Vice President and General Counsel of United Way of Greater Cleveland, a position she has held for over five years. She came to United Way with over 31 years of experience practicing law with the Forbes, Fields & Associates law firm, where she was previously active in the firm’s public law and municipal finance practice.  

Forbes Fields graduated cum laude in 1981, from Spelman College with a B.A. degree in Political Science and received her J.D. in 1984 from Howard University School of Law. She also attended Loyola University Summer Law School, Rome, Italy, in 1983. 

Forbes Fields has been profiled in several magazine publications for her community and civic interests, and received recognition by Fraser Net and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for her contributions to the community, Crain’s as a 2019 Notable Woman in Nonprofit. She was awarded the Cleveland Arts Prize Special Prize in 2020 and selected by Smart Women as a Progressive Woman honoree in 2021.  She is a graduate of Leadership Cleveland, Class of 1994. Currently, she serves as a trustee for the Cleveland Museum of Art, where she led the Museum’s Board effort in the implementation of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Plan; County Executive Budish’s appointee to the Board of Trustees, of Cuyahoga Community College where she currently serves as Chairperson of the Board.  She also serves as Chair of the Board of Front International, and member of the Spelman College Museum of Art Advisory Committee. 

Forbes Fields is married to Darrell A. Fields and they have three grown children. To read Helen’s full bio, click here.