Jacqueline Novogratz

Under Jacqueline’s leadership as Founder and CEO, Acumen has approved investments of more than $101 million in 89 companies in Africa, Latin America and South Asia, all focused on delivering affordable agricultural inputs, education, energy, health care, housing and water to the poor. These companies have created and supported 60,000 jobs, leveraged an additional $500 million, and brought basic services to more than 125 million people. In December 2011, Acumen and Jacqueline were on the cover of Forbes magazine as part of its feature on social innovation. Prior to Acumen, Jacqueline founded and directed The Philanthropy Workshop and The Next Generation Leadership programs at the Rockefeller Foundation. She also co-founded Duterimbere, a micro-finance institution in Rwanda. She began her career in international banking with Chase Manhattan Bank.

Jacqueline currently sits on the advisory boards of Sonen Capital, the Harvard Business School Social Enterprise Initiative, and the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies (SEED). She also serves on the Aspen Institute Board of Trustees and the board of IDEO.org, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Sustainable Development.

Jacqueline has been featured in Foreign Policy’s list of Top 100 Global Thinkers and The Daily Beast’s 25 Smartest People of the Decade. She is a frequent speaker at forums including the Clinton Global Initiative, TED, and the Aspen Ideas Festival. Her best-selling memoir The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World chronicles her quest to understand poverty and challenges readers to grant dignity to the poor and to rethink their engagement with the world.

She holds an MBA from Stanford and a BA in Economics/International Relations from the University of Virginia. She has received honorary degrees from the University of Notre Dame, Wofford College, Gettysburg College, Middlebury College, Fordham University, and Bard College as well the Freedom from Want Award from the Roosevelt Institute in 2011.