Jacqueline Novogratz

Founder and CEO, Acumen

Jacqueline Novogratz is the founder and CEO of Acumen, a global organization that fights poverty and builds dignity through patient investment in companies and leaders; sharing knowledge and insights based on impact achieved; and creating partnerships to scale what works. Since its founding in 2001, Acumen has impacted more than 700 million individuals across Africa, South Asia, Latin America, and the United States. More than 1,800 social enterprise builders have been trained and supported through Acumen Academy.

Before Acumen, Jacqueline operated as a serial social entrepreneur, co-founding Rwanda’s first microfinance bank in 1987 and founding the Philanthropy Workshop and Next Generation Leaders program while at the Rockefeller Foundation. Prior to this, she worked in international banking with Chase Manhattan Bank.

Jacqueline is the author of the best-selling The Blue Sweater (2009) and Manifesto for a Moral Revolution: Practices to Build a Better World (2020). She is a member of The B Team and serves on numerous boards and advisory boards. She has been named one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy, one of Insider’s Climate Action 30 leaders, one of the 25 Smartest People of the Decade by the Daily Beast, and one of the world’s 100 Greatest Living Business Minds by Forbes, which also honored her with the Forbes 400 Lifetime Achievement Award for Social Entrepreneurship. She holds an MBA from Stanford University, a BA in Economics/International Relations from the University of Virginia, and a number of honorary doctorates.