Elsie Meeks, an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Tribe, is the executive director of Oweesta. Elsie has over 20 years experience working for Native community economic development. Prior to her leadership and work at OWEESTA, Elsie was active for 15 years in the development and management of The Lakota Fund, a small business and microenterprise development loan fund CDFI on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

Elsie has recently completed a three-year term on the Federal Reserve Board’s Consumer Advisory Council.  She now serves as chairperson of The Lakota Fund and sits on the boards of Opportunity Finance Network (formerly National Community Capital Association), Corporation for Enterprise Development, Northwest Area Foundation and the Oglala Sioux Tribe Partnership for Housing. She is also an International Advisory Council member of Native Nations Institute and on the Board of Governors for the Honoring Nations program of the the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development.  She recently completed a six-year term on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and was the first Native American to serve on the Commission.  She has been invited on several occasions to provide testimony before the US Senate Indian Affairs Committee regarding economic development in Indian Country. Elsie is presently the chairperson for the Native Financial Education Coalition, for which Oweesta serves as lead organization.  Elsie and her husband Jim make their home on their ranch near Kyle, SD on the Pine Ridge Reservation.