About

Resume & Curriculum Vitae
Last updated: February 2026

Dr. Chelsea (Lynes) Richard is a senior operations and strategy leader with over a decade of experience strengthening organizational effectiveness across public and nonprofit sectors. She currently serves as Vice President of Operations at Central Carolina Community Foundation, where she leads internal operations, data strategy, and organizational alignment to advance the Foundation’s mission and impact.

Previously, Chelsea served in multiple executive leadership roles at South Carolina First Steps, most recently as Chief of Strategy and Research, where she led performance management, strategic planning, and data systems supporting a $70M+ portfolio of statewide programs and initiatives. Her work included building large-scale case management systems, directing evaluations of program impact, advancing data-informed decision-making, and co-leading multi-year strategic plans across government agencies and networks of nonprofit partners.

Across her career, Chelsea has designed and implemented statewide data infrastructure, strengthened cross-functional capacity, advanced interagency data sharing, and overseen communications, evaluation, and research functions. She is recognized for translating complex data into actionable strategy and for leading organizational change during periods of growth and transition.

Chelsea holds a PhD and MSPH in Epidemiology from the University of South Carolina and a BS in Biology from the University of Massachusetts Boston. She serves as an adjunct instructor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and affiliate faculty at the University of South Carolina, teaching quantitative methods at the graduate level. She lives in Columbia, South Carolina with her family.