Karla Valas
Head of Fundraising | Fidelity Charitable
Karla Valas is senior vice president and head of fundraising at Fidelity Charitable®, an independent public charity that
has helped donors support more than 300,000 nonprofit organizations with $42 billion in grants.1 The mission of Fidelity
Charitable® is to grow the American tradition of philanthropy by providing programs that make charitable giving
accessible, simple, and effective. She assumed her current role in 2019.
As the head of fundraising, Ms. Valas is responsible for leading the strategic direction, alignment, and execution of
fundraising efforts at Fidelity Charitable. Her national team educates advisors and their clients on current charitable
planning trends and strategies, along with the benefits of leveraging Fidelity Charitable’s donor-advised fund program to
help donors give more to the charities they support.
Prior to assuming her current role, Ms. Valas spent more than 12 years as the managing director of the Fidelity
Charitable Advanced Planning Group. As part of her responsibilities she led the Complex Assets Group, a team of
attorneys bringing deep knowledge and technical expertise to donors who wish to contribute sophisticated assets, such
as privately held business interests, to charity. She also led the Fidelity Charitable Practice Management offering for
advisors.
Prior to that, Ms. Valas was the chief compliance officer for Fidelity Charitable, with responsibility for providing
integrated tax, legal, and compliance support for the donor-advised fund program. Before joining Fidelity Charitable in
2001, Ms. Valas was with Fidelity Investments, serving as a director in Fidelity’s Institutional Retirement Services
Corporation. Ms. Valas has also been an appellate court attorney for the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division
Third Judicial Department.