Fagan Harris, the chief of staff to Gov. Wes Moore, will resign his post at the end of the year to become the next president of The Abell Foundation, one of Baltimore’s most influential philanthropic organizations.

Harris, 38, will return to the nonprofit sector where he had spent all of his career before joining Moore’s administration. He is expected to start at the Abell Foundation in the new year.

His departure comes as the governor is entering the last year of his term with a 2026 reelection campaign rapidly approaching. Harris has not only led Moore’s staff, but served as a key advisor and confidante to the governor on high-profile issues.

In an interview, Harris said his time in government was “utterly transformative.” But once the Abell position opened up, it was a chance he could not turn down — “It’s kind of a once in a lifetime thing,” he said.

“I think I can help contribute to the city in this moment,” Harris said. “It felt like the right thing at the right time.”

The Abell Foundation manages more than $330 million in assets, its latest annual report shows, and funds a range of programs and research meant to improve city residents’ quality of life. It is the largest philanthropic organization solely focused on Baltimore.

The Abell Foundation is a donor to The Baltimore Banner.

With Baltimore making progress on some of its most entrenched problems — the homicide rate and population loss — Harris said he saw an opportunity to help lead the city into a new age.

“The conditions are right to grow the city again and to really nurture it and do that from the bottom up in all of its neighborhoods,” he said.

Harris will be the Abell Foundation’s second president, replacing Robert C. Embry Jr., who announced his retirement earlier this year.

Embry, who goes by Bob, is widely seen as one of the most influential Baltimoreans in the city’s history. Former U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, in an interview with The Baltimore Sun, called him one of the city’s “great social architects.”

Abell Foundation Chair Christy Wyskiel said Harris and Embry are both visionaries who bring tenacity and thoughtfulness to their work. With Harris’ government connections and understanding of state resources, as well as his prior experience in philanthropy on a national level, Wyskiel said Harris is uniquely positioned to help Abell have maximum impact.

“Other cities that have gone through a major renaissance are usually because four groups have come together — the philanthropic, the corporate, the anchor institutions and the government,” she said. “I think Fagan is an excellent person to help galvanize those groups right here in Baltimore.”

Even Moore apparently thought Harris would be the right person for the Abell job. When Harris first spoke to his current boss about making the move, he said Moore responded by saying: “As soon as I read about Bob stepping down, I said to myself, ‘I think [Fagan] would be perfect for this.’”

As chief of staff, his first job in government, Harris oversaw the work of dozens of members of Moore’s team, ensuring that they carried out the governor’s vision. The pair have known each other for years from their work in the nonprofit sector and are good friends.

Harris has often worked behind the scenes, but took prominent roles on key issues in 2025. When the governor sought to roll back parts of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future — the state’s ambitious but expensive landmark education plan — he dispatched Harris to field questions from skeptical lawmakers at a high-profile public hearing.

And when Moore’s veto on studying reparations for slavery came under scrutiny, Harris put out a statement defending the governor and saying that some accounts from lawmakers “are lies.”

Before being tapped as Moore’s chief of staff shortly after the 2022 election, Harris was the founder and CEO of the nonprofit Baltimore Corps, which issues grants and places fellows with nonprofit organizations. In some ways, running the Abell Foundation will be a bit of a full-circle moment for Harris — his Baltimore Corps was a recipient of foundation grants.

“When I look around the city of Baltimore, we have a cohort of social entrepreneurs who punch above their weight,” Harris said. “I think we’ve got more and better leaders for social change per capita than any other place in the country.”

Harris graduated from Glen Burnie High School and attended Stanford University before becoming a Rhodes Scholar, studying social sciences at the University of Oxford.

When Harris took the chief of staff job, he said he would use his experience in other forms of public service to inform his work at the State House.

“I’ve spent my career working with government, working with our communities, working with our nonprofits, our philanthropies, our entrepreneurs, our business owners to get big things done with our communities,” Harris said in November 2022.

He is not the first chief of staff to a Maryland governor to exit Annapolis and replace a long-standing foundation leader. Matthew D. Gallagher left his role as chief of staff to former Gov. Martin O’Malley in 2013 to take over the Goldseker Foundation.

Gallagher considers Harris a friend, and said in an interview that being chief of staff for a governor is an all-encompassing job — both rewarding and exhausting.

“When you have a role like that, it does take a unique and special opportunity to convince you to make that type of change,” Gallagher said. “There are very few things you can do where you can be so proximate to the work as you can be running a foundation.”

The Goldseker Foundation is a donor to The Baltimore Banner.

It is common for governors to cycle through multiple chiefs of staff during their time in office. Former Govs. Larry Hogan had five chiefs over his eight years; O’Malley had three; Bob Ehrlich two in four years; and Parris Glendening three over his two terms.

Moore is expected to develop a shortlist of candidates to replace Harris in the coming weeks, and will announce a successor in the fall.