Marcq Sung joined McKnight in January 2022 as a Senior Program Officer with the Vibrant & Equitable Communities program, developing innovative grant portfolios to help build a better future for all Minnesotans grounded in shared power, prosperity, and participation.
Marcq has since expanded his responsibilities and now serves as Senior Program Officer & Program-Related Investments (PRI) Portfolio Manager, an inaugural position that reflects an important evolution of McKnight’s mission‑aligned investing strategy. In this rare dual role, Marcq provides strategic leadership for the Foundation’s $100 million (PRI) portfolio while continuing his work on the Vibrant & Equitable Communities team, where he holds the Access to Capital strategy.
As PRI Portfolio Manager, Marcq stewards and strengthens the PRI portfolio across the Foundation, bringing greater clarity, discipline, and shared infrastructure to this work by providing concessionary capital, credit enhancements, and impact-centered equity investments. He has led the Program‑Related Investments portfolio since 2025 and works closely with program and investment colleagues to help integrate program strategy and mission‑aligned investments.
Marcq has dedicated his career to working with communities for change. Prior to McKnight, he served as Director of Program Strategy and Development for the Community Reinvestment Fund, USA, where he developed programs and deployed over $200 million in capital to underserved communities through loans and grants. From 2015 to 2019, he worked at the City of Saint Paul in the Planning and Economic Development department as a Director of Business Development, highlighting cultural business corridors, and as a project manager, helping launch Full Stack Saint Paul, a public-private collaboration to support tech-focused opportunities that seeded early venture capital opportunities and fostered educational curricula to underserved communities in the City. He has also served as a financial advisor for RBC Wealth Management with an emphasis on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing, and served as a strategic initiatives analyst to benchmark and devise strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for Three Rivers Park District in Plymouth, Minnesota.
Marcq attended graduate school in journalism and mass communication at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities and holds a master’s in business administration with an emphasis on sustainability from Presidio Graduate School. He holds bachelor’s degrees from St. John’s University in management and communications studies. He is a certified economic development finance professional through National Development Council (Grow America) and a Global Reporting Initiative sustainability reporter.
He is the current Advisory Board Chair for Rooted Philanthropic, serves on the Environmental Justice and Accountability Board for Xcel Energy, and serves on Padilla Co’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Collective.
Born in Seoul, South Korea, raised in Los Angeles, and now lives in the Twin Cities with his family.
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.'”
-Fred Rogers
