September 8, 2025

City Club event description:

Join the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and The Joint Affinity Group representing philanthropy in Chicago (Chicago African Americans in Philanthropy, Chicago Latines in Philanthropy, and Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy) for an afternoon of honest conversation and community connection. As polarization deepens and efforts toward diversity, equity, and inclusion face new challenges, we’ll explore how racial healing can help bridge divides and foster solidarity.

Kayce Ataiyero, Chief External Affairs Officer of the Joyce Foundation and La June Montgomery Tabron, author (How We Heal: A Journey Toward Truth, Racial Healing, and Community Transformation from the Inside Out) and president and CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, will discuss what it takes to lead with empathy, build trust, and create space for collective healing.

La June Montgomery Tabron is the president and CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) in Battle Creek, Michigan, one of the largest private foundations in the United States. As president and CEO, Tabron leads the Kellogg Foundation in its work to support thriving children, working families and equitable communities.

Before becoming the first African American president and CEO to lead the foundation, she served in various positions throughout the Kellogg Foundation after joining the organization as the controller in 1987. Most recently, she was the executive vice president of operations and treasurer, overseeing all financial plans, policies and relationships within the financial community and WKKF’s Technology, Human Resources and Administration, Finance, Program Services and Quality & Organizational Effectiveness functions. In this role, she was pivotal in connecting and integrating WKKF’s leadership committees: the Executive Council, Program Leadership Council, Talent Board and Organizational Advisory Team, ensuring unified execution of the organization’s mission and strategic framework across all programmatic and priority place areas. She also led WKKF’s place-based grantmaking in Mississippi and New Orleans since 2011, launching a significant effort to help set young males of color on the path to success in 2013.

For more than two decades, Tabron has played an active leadership role in the Kellogg Foundation’s racial equity, diversity and inclusion work – both internally through its work with its board and staff, and externally through its work with grantees, partners and vendors. In 2025, she authored How We Heal and Our Differences Make Us Stronger, books that reflect her lifelong commitment to healing, connection, and community transformation. How We Heal explores how truth-telling and healing can bridge divides and strengthen communities, while Our Differences Make Us Stronger, a children’s book, highlights the importance of empathy and belonging.

Other earlier positions at WKKF included: chief operating officer and treasurer; senior vice president/chief financial officer and treasurer; vice president – finance and treasurer; and assistant vice president for finance and assistant treasurer. Prior to joining WKKF, she wasban auditor for Plante & Moran CPAs.

As a community and civic leader, Tabron is a member of the Kalamazoo Chapter of the Links, Incorporated. She also serves on the boards of Battle Creek Community Health Partners, Bronson Healthcare Group, Kellanova, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), and the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America- College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA). Tabron is also the chair of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Trust.

Tabron holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor and a master’s degree in business administration from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. She received honorary doctorates from Elms College, Grand Valley State University, Ithaca College, Marygrove College and Union Institute & University. She is a certified public accountant. She is also a graduate of the inaugural class of the Council on Foundations’ Career Pathways Program.

An international thought leader, Tabron has spoken at the Aspen Ideas Festival, the Clinton Global Initiative, the ESSENCE Festival of Culture, the Milken Institute Global Conference and the University of Oxford.

In 2020, Tabron was named the recipient of the Bynum Tudor Fellowship at Kellogg College in Oxford, England. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies awarded Tabron the Louis E. Martin Great American Award, the organization’s highest honor, in 2022. In 2023, Inside Philanthropy included Tabron on its list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in U.S. Philanthropy, the New York Times named her a Groundbreaker at its annual Dealbook Summit and, in March 2024, Worth Magazine named her to its list of 100 Groundbreaking Women. In 2025, Tabron was named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in philanthropy.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF), founded in 1930 as an independent, private foundation by breakfast cereal innovator and entrepreneur Will Keith Kellogg, is among the largest philanthropic foundations in the United States. Guided by the belief that all children should have an equal opportunity to thrive, WKKF works with communities to create conditions for vulnerable children so they can realize their full potential in school, work and life.

The Kellogg Foundation is based in Battle Creek, Michigan, and works throughout the United States and internationally, as well as with sovereign tribes. Special attention is paid to priority places where there are high concentrations of poverty and where children face significant barriers to success. WKKF priority places in the U.S. are in Michigan,Mississippi, New Mexico and New Orleans; and internationally, are in Mexico and Haiti.

City Club video

Kayce Ataiyero is the Chief External Affairs Officer at the Joyce Foundation, where she oversees the Foundation’s strategic communications, the Journalism Program and the Lend A Hand community grants fund. She is also a member of the Foundation’s leadership team.

Kayce has extensive experience in communications, journalism and politics. Prior to joining the Foundation in 2018, she served as director of external affairs for the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, where she led communications and community engagement. She has also led communications for U.S. Congresswoman Robin Kelly, the Illinois Governor’s Office and the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office.

As an award-winning journalist, Kayce previously worked as a staff writer for the Chicago Tribune, The Raleigh News and Observer, Philadelphia Inquirer and Washington Post.

Kayce has a degree in journalism from the University of Maryland College Park. She is board chair of Media Impact Funders, a national organization that advances the work of a broad range of funders committed to supporting media in the public interest. She also serves on the board of Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, an organization committed to the unfinished business of our nation’s civil rights movement.

She is a Leadership Greater Chicago Daniel Burnham Fellow, was named a Top 10 Empowering Women Leaders to Follow by CIO Views Magazine, a Chicago Titan 100, one of the Top 50 Women Leaders of Illinois by Women We Admire, a Notable Black Leader and Executive by Crain’s Chicago Business and one of Chicago’s most influential Black leaders by The Chicago Tribune. She is a member of the Economic Club of Chicago. She also at one time was general manager of the Chicago Steam, a minor-league basketball team.