38 Ransom Everglades LOG FALL 2025 Annie Lord ’97 lives at the intersection of achievement and activism. The 2025 recipient of the Ransom Everglades Founders’ Award for Distinguished Service to the Community comes from a family best described as artistic and intellectual superstars. In 1974, her father, Wally Lord, founded Fusion Dance Co., Miami’s first professional modern dance company. Her mother, born in Cuba, earned a PhD and became a family therapist at a time few wives with school-aged children worked. Her brother, Phil Lord ’93, and his creative soul mate, Chris Miller, are an American filmmaking duo, who in 2019 won an Academy Award for writing and producing Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Annie is no less impressive. Her ascent to the role of executive director at Miami Homes for All is the culmination of an extraordinary personal and academic journey. As an eighth grader at RE, she was awarded the Marie B. Swenson Cup the same year her brother won the Paul C. Ransom Cup as a senior. After Ransom Everglades, she earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in public policy from Harvard University. When she walked out of Cambridge, Mass., the world was her oyster. She could have leveraged her pristine education and family influence to ascend the economic ladder of any profession. But her heart had other plans. She felt the “high-achievement push” into high-paying opportunities but, she said, “for whatever reason none interested me. It was hard for me to be motivated, to put in the work.” Annie’s journey to her life’s purpose was far from straight. Before starting her master’s, she took a job at an international policy think tank. She was unsatisfied, prompting her to go to graduate school. After graduation she moved back to Washington, D.C. She looked for jobs in international economic development and was either too inexperienced or over-credentialed. She changed her approach and decided to look for work where she lived, so she Googled three words: Latino, economic and development. The Latino Economic Development Corporation popped up and just so happened to be hiring. And so, at the tender age of 25, Annie Lord fell in love with supporting the wellbeing and economic growth of her own neighbors. “I fell in love with community development work,” she said. “I was 25 at the time so actually I felt lucky to find a path for my life that would provide me endless curiosity and intellectual challenge.” Although it took time to name her life’s purpose, her curiosity for the work of community development was born during her childhood at RE. “I was always disturbed by the question of why some people have and other people have not. Growing up in Coconut Grove, there were students in my classroom that grew up Journey of a Goodness Entrepreneur An Interview with Annie Lord ’97, Executive Director of Miami Homes for All
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