Jacqueline Novogratz
Founder and CEO, Acumen Fund
As Acumen Fund’s founder and CEO, Jacqueline Novogratz leads the nonprofit venture fund in investing philanthropic capital in scalable businesses that serve the poor with life-changing goods and services. Since its launch in 2001, Acumen Fund has invested $40 million in over 35 companies serving millions of low-income customers in the developing world. Prior to Acumen Fund, she founded and directed The Philanthropy Workshop and The Next Generation Leadership program at the Rockefeller Foundation. She began her career in international banking with Chase Manhattan Bank and she founded Duterimbere, a micro-finance institution in Rwanda. Jacqueline has an MBA from Stanford and a BA in Economics/International Relations from the University of Virginia. Her recently published best-selling memoir, The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World, challenges readers to grant dignity to the poor and to rethink their engagement with the world.
