Abi is the author of The Girl with the Louding Voice, which was a New York Times bestseller, a #ReadWithJenna Today Show book club pick, a BBC Radio 4 Bookclub Pick,and an Indie Next Pick.

Translated into 16 languages( till date) and studied on curriculums across the world, the Girl With The Louding Voice tells the story of Adunni, a 14 year old girl who is desperate for an education.

The novel has received critical acclaim and has been shortlisted for several awards including The British Book Awards Best Book of The Year , The Nigeria Prize for Literature ( Africa’s largest literary Prize), and in 2020 was named as The legendary Dolly Parton’s favourite of 2020 as well as selected as an Amazon Best Book of The Year for July 2020.

Abi grew up in Lagos, Nigeria and went on to study law at the University of Wolverhampton, graduating as Best Performing Student on her MSc in International Project Management from Glasgow Caledonian University, as well as an MA ( with distinction) in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, University of London.

Abi has had over 15 years experience in corporate project management, working with several multinationals to deliver multimillion pound programmes and investments and is passionate about education, particularly for the girl child.

A well- sought after speaker, Abi has supported and attended various events advocating for, and highlighting areas of need including NGOs and Charities across the world such as The Malala Foundation, BookAid International, Women’s Global Education Project, FAWCO, The International Rescue Committee and many more. In 2022, Abi was appointed as External Board Member, the BIC Corporate Foundation, and the first ever goodwill ambassador for Women’s Global Education Project.

Founded in 2010 by Kate and David Jones, the founder and CEO of the Brand Tech Group, One Young World today has 15,000+ ambassadors in 196 countries forming a unique and demonstrably valuable network. The idea that this most informed, most connected generation in human history could be brought together and supported into positions of increased influence and better leadership in all sectors has proved to be not only sustainable but genuinely effective – its ambassadors have thus far impacted the lives of 35 million people

Kate served as Chairman of the Havas group from 2006 to 2015 and as Global President from 2013. Working mainly in global roles, Kate became convinced of the importance of the roles of global institutions and global businesses in the certainty that what unites people is greater than geographical distance and national distinctions. Having grown up in apartheid South Africa, Kate’s world view is defined by having witnessed the creation of its new way of life. Awed by the leadership of Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Kate believes in the limitless possibilities a sense of shared humanity can create. Inspired by her love for the Olympic movement and its values, One Young World should, in Kate’s vision, give young leaders a chance to meet their counterparts from every country in the world and resolve to make the world a better place.

Efosa Ojomo leads the Global Prosperity research group at the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, a think tank based in Boston and Silicon Valley. In January, 2019, Ojomo and late Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen published The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty. In a Wall Street Journal review of The Prosperity Paradox, Rupert Darwall writes: “The authors return the entrepreneur and innovation to the center stage of economic development and prosperity.”

Ojomo’s work has been published and covered by the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, the Guardian, Quartz, Forbes, Fortune, The World Bank, NPR and several other media outlets. He speaks regularly on innovation and has presented his work at TED, the Aspen Ideas Festival, the World Bank, Harvard, Yale, Oxford and at several other conferences and institutions.

Ojomo graduated from Vanderbilt University with a degree in computer engineering and got his MBA from Harvard Business School.

Gerald Chertavian is dedicated to closing the Opportunity Divide that exists in our nation. Determined to make this vision a reality, Gerald combined his entrepreneurial skills and his passion for working with young adults to found Year Up in 2000. With its annual operating budget in excess of $170M, Year Up is one of the fastest growing non-profits in the nation. It has been recognized by Fast Company and The Monitor Group as one of the top 25 organizations using business excellence to engineer social change. Year Up has also been recognized consistently as one of the nation’s top 50 non-profits to work for by the Non-Profit Times.

Gerald has been committed to working with under-served young adults for more than three decades. He has actively participated in the Big Brother mentoring program since 1985 and was recognized as one of New York’s outstanding Big Brothers in 1989. In 2006, Gerald was elected as a Fellow with the Ashoka Global Fellowship of social entrepreneurs, and in 2008, he was appointed by then-Governor of Massachusetts Deval Patrick to serve on the Massachusetts State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. In 2013, he was appointed by Governor Patrick to serve as Chairman of the Roxbury Community College Board of Trustees and reappointed to that role by Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker in 2016.

Gerald began his career on Wall Street as an officer of the Chemical Banking Corporation. Following graduate school, he co-founded Conduit Communications and fostered its growth to more than $20M in annual revenues. From 1993 to 1998, Conduit ranked as one of the United Kingdom’s fastest growing companies. Following the sale of Conduit to i-Cube in 1999, Gerald turned his full attention to creating opportunities for others.

Gerald earned a B.A. in Economics, Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude, from Bowdoin College and in 2017 he was awarded the Bowdoin Common Good Award. He received his M.B.A., with honors, from Harvard Business School and in 2014 received the Distinguished Alumni Award. He has received honorary doctorates from the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology and Mount Ida College. He serves on the Board of Advisors for the Harvard Business School’s Social Enterprise Initiative and is a former member of the World Economic Forum’s Youth Unemployment Council. Gerald is also an Emeritus Trustee of Bowdoin College and the Boston Foundation. His 2012 book, A Year Up, is a New York Times best seller.

Gerald is an avid writer and often shares his personal reflections on current events on his website. Read his latest pieces and get in contact at GeraldChertavian.com.

Oleksii Prokopenko is a 34-year-old Ukrainian. He has lived in the USA for five years and is an active volunteer for campaigns and projects supporting Ukraine. He is a public figure and is currently head of the Help Ukraine Center USA fund. He worked as a member of the Board of Directors of the RAZOM in the USA for several years. Oleksii was the instigator of the renaming part of Brighton Beach to Ukrainian Way in NYC in 2022. In Ukraine, he worked in education and public establishments. He was the Head of the Department for General Secondary Education of the Odesa Regional State Administration and taught management and transport economics at local universities. Oleksii has worked actively in the public sector for the last twenty years.

Yasmin Kayali is a Mid Career MPA student at Harvard Kennedy School and a fellow at the Center for Public Leadership under the Emirates Leadership Initiative. She is the President of the Harvard Arab Students Association. She holds an MBA and a BA in PSPA from the American University of Beirut. Previously a marketeer with P&G and then an entrepreneur, she pivoted careers in response to the Syrian refugee crisis in 2012 co-founding Basmeh & Zeitooneh; a grassroots organization servicing Syrian Refugees and their host communities in the Levant region. Awarded 2020 Honoree by the Women Refugee Commission and the Leaders for Peace Award in 2022. She is a Vital Voices fellow and was rapporteur representing Lebanese Civil Society in Brussels in 2020 and 2021.

Before joining Karam as Chief Strategic Officer, Demetri Fadel was the Founder and Executive Director of the MIT Refugee Action (ReACT) Hub, and the administrative Officer for the MIT Department of Chemical Engineering among others. At Karam, Demetri works closely with the Executive Team in planning Karam’s work, development, and growth with an eye to creating effective alignment between strategy, programs, and measurable outcomes. Son to immigrant parents, Demetri grew up in Athens, Greece but currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts. To him, home will always be wherever family, friends, and colleagues are.

Katya Malakhova is the founder of the Sunflower of Peace Foundation. A Ukrainian native, Katya established Sunflower of Peace in 2015 to support a variety of causes in her country of origin, such as medical needs of Ukrainians affected by the military action in the East, medical care and education for Ukrainian orphans, built playgrounds, and facilitated Ukraine-U.S. genetic research exchange on countering effects of radioactive exposure. When the Russian aggression turned into a full-scale war on Ukraine in late February 2022, Ms. Malakhova directed the foundations’ resources to sending tactical backpacks full of urgent medical supplies to the frontlines of this war. Supported by the outpouring of donations and many dedicated volunteers, Ms. Malakhova has led the foundation’s rapid growth and is currently beginning new initiatives which will respond to the dire needs of women and children affected by the war. Besides leading Sunflower of Peace, Katya Malakhova is an award-winning real estate agent within Greater Boston’s 128-belt. A professional tennis player, she brings perseverance and tenacity to everything she does. Katya believes that real success comes from the collective prosperity and well-being of one’s community and country. In all she does, Katya Malakhova never works just for herself, but for her organization and all those whom she is leading and serving.

Having a legal background, Julia worked as a corporate lawyer and regulatory affairs manager in Ukraine and the UK for 10+ years. In 2015 after the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine, she pivoted to the nonprofit sphere. Since then, she has been running Ukraine Global Scholars, a 501(c)(3) public charity that helps bright Ukrainian high school students get accepted at the world’s best boarding schools and colleges on full scholarships for their commitment to return and rebuild Ukraine. Her team of 100 volunteers has helped 200+ Ukrainian students get accepted at the top schools worldwide (Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Choate, Andover, etc.), getting more than $50 MLN in scholarships.

Alice Armanni Sequi brings significant leadership experience in humanitarian financing given her role in overseeing OCHA-managed pooled funds, including the Central Emergency Response Fund and the Country-Based Pooled Funds. As Chief of OCHA’s Pooled Fund Management Branch, she oversees and ensures the effectiveness of the funds, which channel some $2 billion in humanitarian resources annually. In support of the Emergency Relief Coordinator, she sets the strategic positioning of the Funds and their overall policy direction.

Prior to her current appointment, Alice served as OCHA’s Head of Office in Ukraine and Chad, as Chief of OCHA’s Advocacy and Operations in Central and West Africa and as the Coordinator of the IASC Emergency Directors Group. Alice has a background in the private sector – in both investment banking and working with a corporate foundation – and spent five years at the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Society, supporting humanitarian diplomacy, advocacy and resource mobilization.

Phyllis has been delivering positive commercial impact and driving measurable change in society and the environment throughout her career.

She is the Co-Founder and President of OutcomesX which is creating a marketplace for social outcomes. This new company builds on her work at UBS, where she worked for 11 years as the CEO of UBS Optimus Foundation and more recently as Global Head of Social Impact. In her role as CEO of the UBS Optimus Foundation, she overhauled the strategy, resulting in a 20x growth (from $10m to >$200m), and in the creation of the first Development Impact Bond in education.

Prior to UBS, she was an Executive Director and Board Member of the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF). For more than a decade, she also worked as a management consultant, focused primarily on health care, and served in the public sector advising New York State Governor Mario Cuomo on policy and politics in New York City.

She also serves as a Board Chair of Educate Girls USA, and Board Member of the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), Blue Earth Foundation (Switzerland) and the UBS Optimus Foundation UK. She is a Member of the Council of Foreign Relations, a Senior Advisor to the Education Outcomes Fund for Africa and the Middle East, and a Sorenson Global Impact Leader.

Martin Bratt is the Senior Vice President for Awards Management at the International Rescue Committee. In this role he oversees IRC’s work with government and institutional donors, who represent around 70% of IRC’s funding. Prior to taking up this role he served as the organization’s Chief Strategy Officer, leading the development of IRC’s Strategy 100. In his current role he oversees the organization’s engagement with public and institutional donors and is a member of the Leadership Board. He is based in New York City.

Prior to joining IRC Martin was a partner at McKinsey & Company in London, UK, where he specialized in economic development and public sector work. He is a graduate of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales in Paris, France, and holds a Master in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. A Norwegian citizen, he is fluent in English, French and Norwegian.

Andrew Wolff is a first year MBA student at Harvard Business School. Prior to attending HBS, Andrew worked on the Strategy Unit at the International Rescue Committee, an NGO that provides more than $1 Bn of aid to people affected by crisis and disaster around the world. Before working at the IRC, Andrew was a Strategy Consultant at McKinsey in their Dubai and New York offices. After the MBA program, Andrew hopes to continue to work in nonprofit leadership. Andrew attended Dartmouth College where he studied Political Science and Statistics and is an avid adventure traveler and hiker.

Joanna Messing joined Growald Climate Fund in 2007 as the founding Executive Director. Growald Climate Fund is a high-impact venture philanthropy fund focused on driving a rapid transition to a clean energy future. Guided by a mission to catalyze climate innovation and leadership, we identify bold leaders, invest in promising solutions, and support radical collaboration to address the climate crisis. Joanna brings over 20 years of experience in venture philanthropy, social entrepreneurship, and business planning to the field of strategic climate philanthropy.

Prior, Joanna ran her own company Positive Ventures, a philanthropic and social enterprise strategy consulting firm. Previously she was associate director of REDF (previously Roberts Enterprise Development Fund), a leading venture philanthropy fund, and she was also the director of NESsT Consulting and Enterprise Development, where she helped launch and implement the NESsT Venture Fund, investing in social enterprises throughout Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America.

Joanna received her MBA from the University of Massachusetts. Having grown up well off the grid, she brings a deeply rooted ethic of sustainability to both her role at the Growald Climate Fund and her own household. Joanna is an avid salsa dancer.

Prof. John Tobin is an ecologist and attorney with over two decades of private sector experience, having worked in the international finance industry for much of his career. Following a decade of corporate legal practice in the area of emerging markets finance, while actively providing counsel on environmental conservation matters on a pro bono basis, he turned his full attention towards the growing area of corporate sustainability, becoming Managing Director and Global Head of Sustainability at Credit Suisse. In this position, he pioneered a variety of initiatives and policies aimed at setting the finance industry on a more sustainable course.

In 2016 he transitioned into a faculty position at Cornell University, where he teaches corporate sustainability, environmental and social risk management, impact investing, environmental finance, and related topics to undergraduates and graduate students in business and public affairs. His research focuses on the use of financial tools to generate positive outcomes in the areas of sustainable development and biodiversity conservation. In addition, he actively engages with industry and civil society to develop financial solutions to sustainability problems, including as co-founder of the Coalition for Private Investment in Conservation (CPIC). Dr. Tobin has extensive leadership and governance experience in not-for-profit entities at the board level, particularly in the areas of environment, science, and education.

Prof. John Tobin obtained a B.S. in Biology from UCLA, a Ph.D. in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University, and a JD from Harvard Law School.

Dr. Stephen Hammer currently serves as an Advisor, focused on International Climate Policy and Strategy, with the World Bank’s Climate Change Group in Washington DC. In this role he serves as a key policy advisor to WBG senior management and leads the Bank’s climate finance-related engagement with the G7, G20, and UNFCCC. He represents the World Bank on numerous global commissions and working groups focused on climate finance, and was one of the key movers behind the creation of the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action, a group which he continues to advise on strategic matters. In 2021 he chaired the global working group focused on the “Paris Alignment” of MDB lending portfolios.

Prior to his current role he served as Manager, Climate Policy for the World Bank Group, where he led an interdisciplinary team of 60+ scientists, economists, technical experts, and consultants focused on the mainstreaming of climate change in World Bank operations, frontier research on climate change and development topics, and the provision of climate-related advisory services to clients. Before Dr. Hammer joined the World Bank, he was a professor at MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP), where he taught courses on a variety of urban energy and climate policy topics. Prior to that, he taught at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, where he founded and directed the Urban Energy Program; at the Milano Graduate School of Urban Affairs; and at the Pratt Institute.

Dr. Hammer holds a PhD from the London School of Economics, an MPP from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a B.S. in Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning from the University of California at Davis.

Kevin is a first year MPP candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School. Prior to HKS, Kevin worked as a consultant with Deloitte’s Climate & Sustainability practice and a coordination consultant at the United Nations in China. He co-founded the US China Climate Forum, a global community for thoughtful engagement on US-China relations and climate collaboration, and GreenClub, a 501(c) non-profit that delivered 1,000+ tons of emission offsets through energy efficiency and reforestation projects. Kevin has also served brief stints as secretariat manager to Coalition for Private Investment in Conservation, climate financing consultant to the Government of Tonga, and research assistant to Cornell Institute for China Economic Research. Kevin graduated from Cornell University with a degree in Environmental and Sustainability Sciences. He was born and raised in Shanghai, China.

Phil McKenna is a Boston-based reporter for Inside Climate News. Before joining ICN in 2016, he was a freelance writer covering energy and the environment for publications including The New York Times, Smithsonian, Audubon and WIRED. Uprising, a story he wrote about gas leaks under U.S. cities, won the AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award and the 2014 NASW Science in Society Award. Phil has a master’s degree in science writing from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was an Environmental Journalism Fellow at Middlebury College.

Rachel McKenzie Taylor (she/her) is a social and environmental activist, thinker, and organizer with an emphasis on developing the individual and collective emotional, psychological, and relational skills and literacy needed to respond regeneratively to the intersecting crises of our time. She was a Co-Founder and Co-Director of The Joyality Project, an ecopsychology and activism education organization, and is currently the Community Weaver at Crowdsourcing Sustainability. Rachel is passionate about developing community around addressing the climate crisis from a justice-led perspective, and centering imagination, joy, and relationship in co-creating a just, vibrant, and resilient future for all.

Aashish is a social entrepreneur and Co-founder of the MASH Project Foundation, a youth-led social enterprise based in India, that is building a global eco-system for young social changemakers.

Aashish has been a British Council Global Changemaker (London), Official Indian Delegate to BRICS Youth Summit (Guwahati), UNESCO Youth Forum Participant (Paris), and International Youth Forum Participant (Seliger, Russia). He was invited to speak at the International Conference on Climate Change organized by The World Youth Foundation in Malaysia. He is ‘Changemaker’ by Ashoka Foundation and participated at Asia Changemakers Exchange Summit held in Singapore and the Network Summit in Indonesia. He is an UNLEASH Talent from the Innovation Lab in Singapore on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs). Recently, He was conferred as a Goalkeeper Global Goals Award by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

During his Undergrad, he conceptualized and built a solid waste management model, which went on to become one of the finest models of decentralized urban waste management in India and got extensively covered in the media and research study for various stakeholders. The model is being operational in New Delhi, India and has become a case-study for many similar models across the world.

Ryan is the founder of Crowdsourcing Sustainability, a community that combines the collective energy, intelligence, and actions of people everywhere to crowdsource more sustainability into the world and build a safer and healthier planet. His goal is to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere as quickly as possible for a safer, healthier, and more just world. He started Crowdsourcing Sustainability to educate, connect, and ultimately unleash the power of people around the world to help reverse global heating as quickly and equitably as possible.

Dr. Genevieve Guenther is an author, climate activist, and native New Yorker. An expert in climate communication and fossil-fuel disinformation, she is the founding director of End Climate Silence, a volunteer organization dedicated to helping the news media cover the climate crisis with the accuracy and urgency it deserves, and affiliate faculty at The New School, where she sits on the board of the Tishman Environment and Design Center. Dr. Guenther advises activist groups, corporations, and policymakers, and she serves as an Expert Reviewer for the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Her next book, The Language of Climate Politics, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.

Priyanka is passionate about creating innovative business solutions that drive social impact. After graduating from Northwestern University, she worked as a strategy consultant at EY-Parthenon, focusing on educational and non-profit consulting engagements, and most recently worked as an impact investor at Social Finance, leading investments that created economic opportunity for at-risk populations in the US. As a joint MBA & MPP student, Priyanka hopes to focus on the applications of impact investing and social entrepreneurship to solving social challenges in emerging markets.

Mounira is a business mentor supporting leaders and corporations to learn
the skills for inner and collective transformation needed to create The New
Paradigm that serves humanity as a whole. Her expertise lies in the journey
from self-leadership to leading others. She brings 20+ years of leadership
experience at international brands like Google, Red Bull, and BMW.
Mounira was one of the pioneers of Google’s mindful leadership community
and its success led her to train teams around the world. As the co-founder of
Connected Business and internationally certified Search Inside Yourself
trainer, her mission is to empower Leaders of the New Paradigm who find
new ways of co-collaboration to create a world that serves the next 7
generations to come. In the past years, she worked with and mentored more
than 30.000 (business) pioneers and trained hundreds of teachers globally.
Her book Connected Business: How I learned to lead myself and others was
published by Ariston/Randomhouse Publishing in April 2020.

Jennifer is a McCloy Fellow and MPP Candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School where she explores social entrepreneurship, storytelling and public policy as tools for change. She is the founder of the program “From Good Girl to Badass” which has reached young leaders in 15+ countries across five continents. Determined to address socioeconomic and gender inequalities, she has served as the German youth advisor to the G7 and G20. Her adventurous soul and curious mind inspired her to embark on a digital nomad journey during which she travelled the world for almost one and a half years while working in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion remotely.

Yashveer leads the Ashoka Young Changemakers program at Ashoka Innovators for the Public, world’s largest network of social entrepreneurs & innovators. Ashoka Young Changemakers identifies, selects and builds a global community of Teen Changemakers. Prior to this, he founded a youth non-profit to address talent inequity in the development sector and influence youth culture in India by inspiring, and educating university students to pursue social innovation and entrepreneurship. Yashveer has co-authored a book #ChangeStartsYoung featuring inspiring stories of young changemakers from across India.

For his work, Yashveer has been recognized in “Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia” list in the year 2016 as was awarded Youth Action Net 2012 Fellowship by International Youth Foundation. Yashveer earned his MBA at University of Oxford, where he was the only MBA student to receive Vice-Chancellor Social Impact Award 2014 for his initiatives as Co-Chair Social Impact, Oxford Business Network (OBN). As the President of Student’s Union BITS Pilani 2006-07, Yashveer co-founded the University VISION 2020 Plan.

Born and raised in Southern California, LaShyra “Lash” is a writer, activist, and dual-degree MD/MPP student at Harvard Medical School and Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where she is serving as student council president of her medical school class—the first documented Black woman to hold this leadership position. A fervent advocate for marginalized populations, her voice has been featured in the New England Journal of Medicine, Health Affairs, and NPR, among others. She is also a co-host of the Clinical Problem Solvers Anti-Racism in Medicine Podcast and a served as a member of the White House Health Equity Roundtable. During the COVID-19 pandemic she founded We Got Us, a grassroots community empowerment project with the mission to increase access to education and healing for marginalized communities.

Her work has earned her the honor of being named a Forbes “30 Under 30” Leader in Healthcare, the 2020 National Minority Quality Forum’s youngest “40 under 40 Leader in Minority Health”, a Boston Celtics “Hero Among Us”, and a Rock Health “Top 50 Leader in Digital Health”.  In her future she hopes to use policy, writing, and medical education reform as tools to impact the health of her future patients and community as a physician activist and public leader.

Sashko is an MIT sophomore in Math and Economics from Kyiv, Ukraine. They’re a director at Mriya Inc., the president of Ukraine@MIT student group, a co-organizer of rallies and fundraises for Ukraine in Boston area, and a finalist and mentor at Ukraine Global Scholars. Sashko spent summer 2022 and January 2023 volunteering in Ukraine.

Jennifer is a McCloy Fellow and MPP Candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School where she explores social entrepreneurship, storytelling and public policy as tools for change. She is the founder of the program “From Good Girl to Badass” which has reached young leaders in 15+ countries across five continents. Determined to address socioeconomic and gender inequalities, she has served as the German youth advisor to the G7 and G20. Her adventurous soul and curious mind inspired her to embark on a digital nomad journey during which she travelled the world for almost one and a half years while working in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion remotely.

Sonali Madia Patel is a partner in Bridgespan’s New York office. She has been at Bridgespan since 2014 and has worked primarily in the philanthropy practice on a wide range of projects varying from initiative strategy to organizational design. She worked with the Tata Trusts developing their malnutrition strategy in India as well as supporting process redesign for grantmaking. She has spent the last two years working with the Rockefeller Foundation on the design of major initiatives in youth employment, global food systems, and science as well as a global scan to help them to develop a short-list of ideas for their next “big bet”. Most recently she worked with a large global family foundation first on supporting their foundation in developing its vision, mission, and principles and then in a separate effort to foster more collaboration and innovation amongst the family members. Sonali has also worked with large NGOs as well, most notably National Geographic Society on defining its mission and vision and critical pivots for the organization to achieve its goals and more recently on executive team effectiveness.

Prior to joining The Bridgespan Group, Sonali was at Bain & Company working primarily in the healthcare practice. While at Bain her work was focused on a wide range of issues including growth strategy, organizational and process redesign, and performance improvement.

Sonali graduated from Duke University with BS in Psychology and received her MBA from The Wharton School. She currently lives in Rye, NY with her husband and three children.

Monique Tú Nguyen is the Executive Director of the Mayor’s Office for Immigrant Advancement and leads the department to advance stability, economic empowerment, civic ownership, and social integration for immigrants in Boston. She is committed to advocating for immigrants in Boston and building community to further equity and belonging.

Director Nguyen has extensive experience in community-driven leadership and economic and racial justice. Prior to this appointment, she served as Executive Director of Matahari Women Workers’ Center for 10 years, advancing the rights and protections for domestic workers, women, immigrants, and their families. She’s also been recognized for her leadership of the MassUndocuFund, a million dollar COVID-19 cash relief fund for immigrant workers, and for spearheading the successful passage of the Massachusetts Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in 2014.

Director Nguyen is from Vancouver, Canada, and a proud daughter of Vietnam War refugees. She speaks English, Vietnamese, and is learning Spanish. She loves to cook, dance, hike, and dream and scheme about community building.

Annick has 15 years of experience in the United Nations and is currently serving as the Team Leader for Partnerships as well as Climate, Peace and Security in the Department of Peace Operations, which provides political and executive direction to UN peacekeeping operations around the world and maintains contact with the Security Council, troop and financial contributors, and parties to the conflict in the implementation of Security Council mandates.

Before taking up this position, Annick was the counter-terrorism focal point in the United Nations Liaison Office for Peace and Security (UNLOPS) in Brussels.  She has also worked for the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, the European Commission and the World Food Programme.

Annick holds a Master in Public Administration from Cornell University and speaks English, Dutch, French and Spanish

Dr. Satchit Balsari is an emergency physician and public health practitioner. Over the past 20 years, his research has sought to advance the health and human rights of populations displaced by disasters and war, across the Middle East, South Asia and the Americas. He is assistant professor at Harvard’s medical and public health schools, and teaches courses across the University on disasters, war, and leveraging entrepreneurship to solve intractable socioeconomic problems.
Dr. Balsari is the co-director of CrisisReady, a research-response platform committed to advancing evidence-based decision making in disasters (crisisready.io). Dr. Balsari’s innovations in digital health implementation science include cloud-based disease surveillance systems deployed at some of the world’s largest gatherings, including the 2013 and 2015 Kumbh Melas in India. He directs the Harvard India Digital Health Network at the Mittal South Asia Institute (idhnet.org). IDHN’s policy outputs have helped shape the technological and policy landscape of digital health in India. He is founding director of the Climate and Human Health Fellowship at Harvard (climateandhumanhealth.org)
He is a graduate of Grant Medical College, Mumbai; and completed his training at Harvard, Cornell and Columbia. Dr. Balsari is an Asia Society Fellow, an Aspen Ideas Scholar, and the youngest recipient of the BC Roy Award awarded by the President of India, the nation’s highest honor in medicine.

Valeria Tiberi is a first-year student at Harvard Business School. Born and raised in Italy, she had the chance to study and travel in several countries, including Australia and Brazil. These experiences allowed her to develop a passion for nature and better understand the risks related to climate change. Valeria is also the co-founder of Officine Italia, a nonprofit aimed at increasing young people exposure to jobs in the public sector and training trisector entrepreneurs in Italy. Before HBS, she spent 3 years working at Bain & Company mainly on Energy projects, where she witnessed firsthand the challenges companies face to advance the Energy Transition and integrate ESG strategy in their daily operations. After school, she is looking forward to fostering public-private partnerships to catalyze change and financing inclusive solutions against climate change.

Maria, co-founder of Embers. With 8 years of experience in Leadership and Career coaching, Maria has worked with organizations and individuals to empower them to become driven in their leadership practice. During the pandemic, witnessing how burnout was taking a toll on people’s health inspired Maria to get certified as a Health and Wellbeing Coach from Duke Integrative Health. She is passionate about stopping the burnout crisis by helping clients repurpose their vision and focus on what’s important. She helps clients build in habits that support their health and will help them manage work-life stress more effectively. Maria trained in Food Science from Cornell University and obtained an MBA from IE. A runner and a foodie at heart.

Hiba Khaled is the co-founder of Embers, a business dedicated to helping clients recover from burnout by building capacity for transformational and sustainable change. Hiba trained as a physician in the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK, before obtaining a Master’s degree in Medical Education from Harvard Medical School. She worked with Professors Tim O’Brien and Ron Heifetz to coach students from all around the world on leadership. Having experienced and recovered from burnout herself, she is passionate about helping clients in demanding careers recover from burnout, while empowering them to build capacity to thrive in their work and lives. A surfer, tea enthusiast and avid reader.

Kara Murray-Badal is the Director of the Housing Lab. She brings a wealth of managerial and project management experience from both the private and non-profit sectors. Before joining the Terner team, she was a Crisis Project Manager at Bayer Healthcare as well as Deputy Director at The Mosaic Project, a non-profit focused on communication across cultures and backgrounds. She’s also an Oakland native with a history in community activism and politics, having consulted on policy for several cities and done communications and field leadership for electoral campaigns. Kara holds an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and a BA in Psychology from Stanford University.

Jesse has over 15 years of experience in real estate development, public policy, and community engagement. Jesse is a noted community organizer and founded ABC Cambridge, a community-based organization advocating for increased housing production and smart-growth development in Cambridge and Greater Boston. As a result of his successful leadership of ABC, Jesse was recognized by the Boston Globe Magazine in 2016 as a “game changer” for his and ABC’s positive contributions to improving the Massachusetts economy. Prior to joining B’nai B’rith Housing, Jesse worked as a Senior Project Manager for Somerville Community Corporation, a Regional Project Associate for Community Builders, and a public housing management consultant for Edgemere Consulting. He is also a board member at Just-A-Start Corporation and Chairman of their Real Estate Committee.

Jesse has a Master in City Planning degree from MIT.

Nadine Ngouabe Dlodlo is an impact investment leader and a community development strategist. In 2019, she founded the Women’s Home Preservation LLC (WHP), a mission- driven real estate investment firm that adopts a community-led participatory model to bring back economic vibrancy in formerly redlined communities in Baltimore with an emphasis on creating edifying housing for women-led households. The WHP works to restore the social and cultural dimensions of communities rather than the built environment only. To this extent, it intentionally develops residential and commercial projects that fill the amenity gaps in structurally disinvested communities. The WHP currently has $20M+ projects under development and was recently selected for the Growing Diverse Housing Developers program, a nationwide multimillion-dollar initiative to increase the supply of affordable housing in the US.

A portion of the WHP’s profit supports the Women’s Home Preservation Fund, a 501c3 that Nadine founded to provide relief to single mothers homeowners who are facing foreclosure.

Nadine received her MBA from Harvard Business School. Previously she worked in banking, infrastructure financing and public-private partnerships worldwide. She is the recipient of the Maryland Secretary’s Citation in recognition of her accomplishments in improving Maryland’s communities.

Nadine attended Harvard Business School while raising her 2 year-old daughter Isonah without any form of domestic help. In 2022, Isonah won the national silver medal in poetry at the Scholastic Art & Writing Award

Chris is on a mission to make the world better for people affected by homelessness and poverty. Since graduating from the State University of New York at Oneonta in 2007, Chris has worked many different jobs in the field of homeless services and activism, but also as a musician, writer, and even paralegal. He started The Other Ones Foundation in the summer of 2017 to bring his innovative ideas for addressing homelessness to life.

David Wood is an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy and the Director of the Initiative for Responsible Investment (IRI) at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations. Current projects range from work with pension fund trustees on responsible investment policies, mission investment by foundation endowments, research on the changing nature of the supply for and capacity to receive capital for community investment in the US, and a global survey of the relationship between public policy and impact investment. Recent work has included the publication of the Handbook on Responsible Investment Across Asset Classes (Boston College, 2007); the development of a Responsible Property Investing Center; field definition in sustainable emerging market SME investment; and research into the investor use of corporate reporting on non-financial information. He was elected in 2008 to the Board of the Social Investment Forum. Before he came to the IRI, he taught the history of ethics, including the history of economic thought at Boston University. He received his Ph.D. in History from the Johns Hopkins University.

Anmol is currently a social impact oriented housing investor and developer in Austin, Texas with a focus on higher density, mixed-income housing. ·He is also the co-founder and CEO of the Plug-in-House: a modular, low-cost, quick-build home for urban infill and affordable housing. Previously he worked for 15 years as an equity research analyst and portfolio manager for Fidelity Investments in Boston. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics and Actuarial Studies from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from McCombs School of Business, also from the University of Texas. Anmol is a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government with a focus on urban planning and housing policy. Anmol is the Board Chair of Urbanity Dance, a Boston-based contemporary dance nonprofit; a Board member of The Food Project, a Boston-based urban farming and youth education nonprofit; and a Board member with Music For All, a national music education and advocacy nonprofit. Anmol also is an advisor, consultant, and investor to numerous nonprofits, social enterprises, and investment funds. Anmol was named a 2022 Axios Austin Power Player.

Jesse Van Tol is NCRC’s President and CEO. He has been with NCRC since 2006 and has held a variety of leadership positions, most recently as Chief Operating Officer, as well as senior positions in the organizing and membership, communications, policy and research teams. His work championing fair and responsible banking has resulted in $548 billion in new investments in low- and moderate-income communities through Community Benefits Agreements with 20 banking institutions. He is a popular speaker and lecturer, and has appeared on NPR, in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and many other outlets.

Jesse serves on the board of the Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition, and the executive committee of Americans for Financial Reform. He was a Senior Fellow with Humanity in Action, an international human rights group, and a communications institute Fellow with Opportunity Agenda. He also sits on a variety of advisory boards, including the Federal Reserve Board’s Consumer Advisory Council, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s Affordable Housing Advisory Councils. He is a member of the consumer advisory councils of Bank of America, Fifth Third, Huntington National Bank, IBERIABANK, JP Morgan Chase, KeyBank, Quicken Loans and Santander.

Jesse received his bachelor’s degree in History and International Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and is part of the current NeighborWorks Achieving Excellence cohort at Harvard’s Kennedy school.

Mr. Tate has more than 15 years experience in real estate and finance. He began his career at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in the Financial Institutions Group. He moved on to work at such distinguished organizations as Bank of America, Forest City Ratner Companies, Mercy Housing and General Growth Properties. Prior to forming 1025 Advisors, Inc., Mr. Tate worked with Invest Atlanta where he oversaw five financing programs for multifamily construction and redevelopment. He holds a B.S. in Business Administration from Florida A&M University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Lourdes German began her career specializing in public finance as an attorney advising state and local governments in their public finance transactions at the international law firm Palmer & Dodge (now Locke Lord, LLP). Following that work, Lourdes joined the public finance department at Fidelity Investments, where she served as a Vice President who launched and led the company’s municipal finance efforts in the Northeast and opened Fidelity’s New York office for public finance investment banking. Following Fidelity, Lourdes’ professional experiences include serving as General Counsel and Vice President of Municipal Investment research at Breckinridge Capital Advisors and serving as a Director of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. At Lincoln, Lourdes helped grow a global campaign on municipal fiscal health via activities that included serving as a speaker in the first bi-partisan congressional briefing focused on municipal finance and serving as an expert advisor to the United Nations in support of the launch of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. In her capacity supporting the UN, Lourdes served as one of the co-authors of the book, Finance for City Leaders, published by the United Nations Press in 2016.

Dr Nat Ware is a global leader in both research and practice in the fields of impact investing and social entrepreneurship. He is the Founder/CEO of two successful global social ventures. In 2007 he founded 180 Degrees Consulting (www.180dc.org) and grew it into the world’s largest consultancy for non-profits and social enterprises, with 175 branches across 48 countries and over 6 million hours of services provided. 180 Degrees also aims to develop the next generation of social entrepreneurs. Over 100,000 university students have been a part of 180 Degrees to date. Nat is also the Founder/CEO of Forte (www.forteofficial.com), which is a new way to finance education and healthcare at no cost to either individuals or governments, and without needing philanthropy. The FORTE model (which stands for Financing Of Return To Employment) was developed as part of Dr Ware’s pioneering PhD at Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, which was awarded with “no corrections”. The FORTE model aims to perfectly align social impact and financial returns at the systems level, and solve the challenges with Income Share Agreements (ISAs), Social Impact Bonds (SIBs), and other approaches to impact investing. The FORTE model has already been successfully implemented in Australia, Colombia and Costa Rica.

Nat Ware was also the Top Oxford MBA Student, the Best Performer in Development Economics at Oxford, and a Visiting Fellow at Princeton. In addition to the FORTE model, Nat has invented a new way to measure social impact (DEMI – Discounted Expected Marginal Impact) and a better way to measure poverty. Nat is also a Forbes 30 Under 30 List Maker, Goldman Sachs Global Leader, Asia 21 Fellow, Two-Time World Public Speaking Grand Finalist, a Rybakov Laureate, Australian State Young Achiever of the Year, received the Highest Scoring Speech at the World Debating Championships, and is the only-ever Two-Time Global Winner of the prestigious St Gallen Wings of Excellence Award. He has swum the English Channel with friends to raise money for charitable initiatives, completed a full Ironman triathlon, and given three TEDx talks with over two million views.

Mike Silvestri is a Director at Social Finance, where he leads the firm’s impact investing partnerships with donor-advised funds, family offices, and foundations. Mike also helps oversee Social Finance’s career impact bond portfolio, including developing regional workforce funds to finance upskilling/reskilling for low-income individuals. Prior to joining Social Finance, Mike served on the Strategic Operations team within the Office of Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, spearheading numerous efforts to improve service delivery across the Commonwealth. Before that, Mike worked as a social impact consultant at FSG, where he helped corporations, foundations, and nonprofits develop strategies to solve systemic social challenges spanning health, education, and economic mobility. He brings extensive experience in the design, implementation, and scaling of education and workforce programs. Prior to FSG, Mike began his career as a management consultant at Oliver Wyman, where he advised Fortune 500 clients in addressing a range of strategic and operational issues across the energy, retail, and healthcare industries. Mike has founded and currently helps lead an NGO that provides education, leadership development, and college preparation to thousands of South African township youth. Mike has a joint MPP/MBA from the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School. He has received numerous awards for his leadership at the intersection of business and public service, including the Zuckerman Fellowship, Dukakis Fellowship, Harvey Fellowship, Rock Summer Fellowship, George Fellowship, and HBS Leadership Fellowship. He received his BA in Economics with Honors from Harvard College.

Amy is responsible for leading strategic agency initiatives that bring resources to the agency and help JVS become more coordinated, and client centered. She leads JVS’s innovative $15 million Pay for Success project, Pathways to Economic Advancement, the first focused exclusively on workforce development. Amy also works on JVS’s Public Policy initiatives, as well as agency-wide data quality and continuous improvement. She develops service delivery models that respond to the changing economy, allowing JVS students to move into and up career ladders. She advances the agency’s Public Policy platform through local and state-level workforce policy solutions and works to improve JVS’s overall data collection and analysis to best measure our impact. Amy has worked in social services for over 20 years. Before coming to JVS, she worked at a reproductive health center leading two state-wide initiatives. She has also done public health advocacy as well as worked in various direct service positions assisting people living with HIV, pregnant and parenting adolescents, substance users, and poor and homeless women. Amy holds a B.A. in Sociology and Women’s Studies from the University of Michigan and Master’s degrees in both Public Health and Social Work from Boston University.

Brian Trelstad is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School in the General Management Unit, teaching an elective course on Social Entrepreneurship and Systems Change and the first-year required course on Leadership and Corporate Accountability (LCA). His teaching and research focuses on social entrepreneurship, systems change, impact investing, and the role of business in society.

Brian is also a Partner and Board Member at Bridges Fund Management, an impact investing fund that invests in health, education and environmental services business. Prior to Bridges, Brian was the Chief Investment Officer of Acumen, where he oversaw investments in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Brian is a co-chair of Impact Capital Managers, a national membership association of impact investors in the United States and a founding board member of the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE). Prior to Acumen, Brian worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company, was a lead environmental staff person at the Corporation for National Service, and has been involved in a range of non-profit and for-profit start ups. Brian serves on the board of VisionSpring, Candid, and New Jersey Future and is both a Kauffman Fellow of the Center for Venture Education and a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute.

Andrew Trister leads digital health and artificial intelligence at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. His team invests in innovations that weave together artificial intelligence, mobile applications, objective sensor-based measurements, clinical care models and interoperable data infrastructure to improve care delivery at all levels of the health system.

Andrew is a physician scientist passionate about leveraging technology to improve health care for all. He joined the foundation from Apple, where he led clinical research and machine learning for health features on the Apple watch and iPhone. Prior to Apple, he was the senior physician at Sage Bionetworks, where he designed and shipped ResearchKit, an open-source tool for large-scale clinical trials and developed infrastructure to share and collaborate on medical imaging.

Andrew completed clinical residency in radiation oncology at the University of Washington, with additional focus areas in medical- and bio- informatics, earned an M.D., Ph.D. in bioengineering, MSE and BSE in computer science, and a B.A. in biological basis of behavior (neuroscience) all from the University of Pennsylvania.

Katie Bollbach is the Executive Director of PIH-US, the U.S. arm of Partners In Health, a nonprofit global health and social justice organization. PIH-US works to advance health equity in the U.S. by accompanying visionary public health and community leaders to build more just systems and healthier communities. Katie previously worked with PIH in Sierra Leone as Chief Policy and Program Officer during the Ebola response and recovery and in Rwanda on HIV support services. She began her career co-founding and co-leading two organizations, Global Health Corps and FACE AIDS, dedicated to engaging young people in the fight for global health equity and HIV treatment access. She’s also worked in South Africa on gender-based violence policy, in Zambia on refugee services, and as a consultant at The Bridgespan Group. She holds an MPH from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School.

Emmanuel currently serves as Chief Commercial Officer for Novartis’s SSA Region. His passion sits at the intersection of technology, finance, and healthcare, with a focus on accelerating access to medicines inn Low- and Middle-Income Countries. He holds a degree from the University of Cambridge Judge Business School and is currently completing his Masters in Public Administration at the Harvard Kennedy School. Prior to Novartis, Emmanuel led the Value Based Healthcare Practice at the World Economic Forum, and served as Associate Director of Group Strategy at Merck KGaA. He started his career at JP Morgan.

Megha Kumar is Head of Global Partnerships & Business Development at Medtronic LABS – the non-profit global health arm of Medtronic. Medtronic LABS works directly with health systems and Ministries of Health in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia to deliver digitally-enabled, community-based primary care to underserved populations. Megha leads the efforts to build relationships with governments, multilateral agencies, and donors to structure innovative partnerships that leverage public-private funding to strengthen health systems.

Megha holds a BA in Health Care Markets & Finance from the University of Pennsylvania, an MBA in Strategy, Healthcare, and Social Impact from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, and an MPH in Epidemiology from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Grant Heskamp is currently Chief of Staff at the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), a global health organization committed to saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low-and middle-income countries. Prior to CHAI, Grant was a project leader at Boston Consulting Group, where he worked with the Public Sector and Social Impact practice areas, including on projects in pandemic response and economic recovery. He is a graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead-Cain Scholar, and Harvard Business School (MBA 2019).

Maia Gokhale (she/her) is Program Manager for Payer Partnerships at Mae, a culturally responsive digital-first solution aimed at connecting Black women and birthing people with critical pregnancy support resources in effort to drive positive birth experiences and outcomes. As an early team member and first program manager at Mae, Maia focuses on building and maintaining Mae’s partnerships with healthcare payers nationwide, growing Mae’s network of community-based and virtual doulas, and supporting multiple stakeholders to navigate new state maternal health legislation and innovation. Maia received her MPH from Harvard Chan in 2020, and has extensive experience standing up health equity initiatives in a variety of care settings, with special focus on Medicaid managed care ecosystems.

Sara Kemppainen is in charge of Special Projects at Fifty Years. She is particularly interested in supporting founders solving complex problems that are traditionally overlooked by investors. She led the development of Repro Grants, a “fast grants” program to accelerate high-risk, high-reward research in the chronically underfunded field of women’s reproductive health. Before joining Fifty Years, Sara was the Head of Program at Slush. She is also the founder of Women in Innovation and Leadership, a professional network that promotes personal growth, collaboration, and gender equality.

Ambreen Molitor (she/her) is the National Director of Innovation at Planned Parenthood, where she develops new strategies to advance the org’s health equity mission and future-proof the organization. Under her purview, the team has won several accolades, such as Fast Co’s Most Innovative Companies three years in a row, several Shorty Social Good Award and Webby recognitions, and an Anthem award for the Bans Off campaign she and her team launched in response to the Dobbs decision. She has also been featured in Women in Product, This is Product Management, and Vox’s Recode podcasts as well as on Cheddar TV.

Christine is a joint degree MPP & MBA candidate from the Harvard Kennedy School and Business School. Before grad school, Christine worked as a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. While at BCG, her focus was on supporting non-profits and foundations in expanding access to medicines in low and middle income countries. At Harvard, she hopes to build on her strategic consulting skills and further explore key challenges in global health, economic development, and gender equity.