Jacqueline Novogratz

Jacqueline Novogratz is the Founder and CEO of Acumen, a pioneering global non-profit organization that invests in the right kind of character and deploys the right kind of capital to solve some of the toughest problems of poverty. Since 2001, the organization has invested $124 million of philanthropic capital in 122 companies, leveraging another $850M and impacting more than 260 million lives in East and West Africa, India, Pakistan, Latin America, and the United States. Acumen also manages over $115M in for-profit impact funds aimed, for instance, at off-grid solar electricity and smallholder agriculture in an era of climate change. To develop a generation of moral entrepreneurial leaders, Acumen has supported 544 Fellows across the world. The organization shares insights and provides tools through its online academy which, to date, has served over a half million individuals. In 2015, Fast Company named Acumen one of the world’s Top 10 Most Innovative Not-for-Profits.

Jacqueline is also the author of the best-selling book, The Blue Sweater. She serves on the Aspen Institute Board of Trustees and sits on the Advisory Councils of the Harvard Business School Social Enterprise Initiative, the Oxford Said Global Leadership Council, and UNICEF. She holds an MBA from Stanford and a BA in Economics/International Relations from the University of Virginia. In 2017, Forbes listed Jacqueline as one of the World’s 100 Greatest Living Business Minds.