One of the nation’s most respected animal welfare professionals, Lisa LaFontaine is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Washington Humane Society (WHS) in the nation’s capital. She brings to WHS extensive leadership and strategic capability in the field, and her experience heading a successful capital campaign that resulted in a state-of-the-art animal adoption and community center and an expanded endowment fund for her prior organization.

Upon her arrival, Lisa quickly made positive policy and procedural changes at WHS, while crafting a solid, forward-thinking vision for the future of the organization as a progressive animal welfare agency. Leveraging WHS’s status as the open-access shelter in the nation’s capital, Lisa effectively cultivated relationships with organizations within the private and public sectors. Ensuring better welfare and protection of animals in the District, Lisa has dramatically increased the live release rate for animals throughout the District of Columbia and advocated for new legislation before City Council. Legislative progress during her tenure includes the Animal Protection Amendment of 2008 and the Wildlife Protection Act of 2010. Lisa also worked with WHS to successfully argue against breed ban legislation.

Lisa recruited a high quality executive leadership team to WHS, who work with her to introduce ground-breaking services and programs. Under her leadership, WHS opened the National Capital Area Spay & Neuter Center, which has sterilized nearly 40,000 animals to date; and developed CatNiPP, a trap-neuter-return program serving the Metro DC region.

WHS also opened a Behavior & Learning Center that houses innovative programs such as Dog Tags and the PACK. Dog Tags is an animal assisted therapy program that garners much national and international attention and support for WHS, as it brings together homeless dogs and wounded soldiers to enable the dogs to find homes more quickly and the soldiers to recover from post-traumatic stress disorder. The PACK is a dynamic running group made up of 200+ District residents who regularly run with adoption candidate dogs in DC and Federal Parks.

For seven years prior to joining WHS, Lisa was CEO of the Monadnock Humane Society, an open admission, full service adoption and learning center in New Hampshire. There she led the transformation of the organization into a leading regional agency providing comprehensive services to animals and people.

Lisa served for six years on the Board of the New England Federation of Humane Societies, leading the Board as President for two years. During her tenure she concentrated on collaborative programs and education among member organizations, identifying and sharing best practices and building relationships between animal protection groups.

Throughout her career she has provided training, mentoring and consultation to humane societies and animal welfare professionals. Since 2009 Lisa has been on the Board of the National Federation of Humane Societies. She serves on its Best Practices and Strategic Planning Committees, and is working on the plan to end euthanasia of homeless animals across the country by the year 2020. She is Vice Chairman of the National Federation of Humane Societies and is a member of Vistage International.

Lisa and her husband Matt Kayhoe share their home with their four-legged family that includes, dog Guinevere; cats Crystal and Gregory Xavier Pibb, the former WHS Mascat; and an ever rotating and always welcomed family of foster animals.

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