Jacqueline Novogratz

Jacqueline Novogratz is an American entrepreneur and author. She is the founder and CEO of Acumen, a non-profit global venture capital fund whose goal is to use entrepreneurial approaches to address global poverty. Acumen has invested over $90 million of patient capital in 80 businesses that have impacted more than 125 million people in the past year. Any money returned to Acumen is reinvested in enterprises serving the poor. Currently, Acumen has offices in New York, Mumbai, Karachi, Nairobi, and Accra.

Early life

Jacqueline Novogratz was born in the U.S., the eldest of seven children. She is a graduate from the University of Virginia where she studied Economics and International Relations and has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. The title of her book, The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World, was inspired by an encounter she had while in Kigali, Rwanda. During a routine jog in her early 20's, Novogratz spotted a boy who was wearing a distinct blue sweater that upon closer inspection, turned out to be the same blue sweater she had donated to her local Goodwill a decade earlier. That blue sweater, with its decorations of a snow-capped mountain, two zebras and stripes, had her name on it. This encounter led Novogratz to realize the interconnectedness of our world, which influences her work today.

Career

Novogratz started her career at Chase Manhattan Bank as an international credit analyst. After three years, she left banking to explore how to make a bigger difference in the world. This led her to work throughout Africa as a consultant for the World Bank and for UNICEF. As a UNICEF consultant in Rwanda in the late 1980s, she helped found Duterimbere, Rwanda’s first microfinance institution. Novogratz also founded and directed The Philanthropy Workshop and The Next Generation Leadership programs at the Rockefeller Foundation before starting Acumen in 2001. Under Novogratz's leadership, Acumen has grown to serve 125 million people a year through its investments of patient capital in businesses that provide low-income people with critical goods and services.[1] She also oversaw the creation of Acumen's year-long Fellowship program that aims to build the next generation of leadership for the social sector.[2]

Novogratz currently serves on the advisory boards of Stanford Graduate School of Business and of Innovations (journal) published by MIT Press. She also serves on the Aspen Institute Board of Trustees and as a member of a World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Social Innovation. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.[3]

In 2010, Jacqueline Novogratz was honored as the 2010 Rensselaer Entrepreneur of the Year (EOY) for her work with Acumen as well as for her New York Times bestseller The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World, published in 2009.[4] In early March 2010, she received an honorary degree from Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Such mark of recognition of her work in Kenya inspired her to establish a book club for The Blue Sweater, using the school's honorarium to create "The Blue Sweater Challenge." The program allows young organizers from the slums of Nairobi, Kenya, who have hosted both "The Blue Sweater book club" and a TEDx in the Kibera slum, to identify and award three local groups who are doing the most to effect positive social change in their communities.[5]

Book

In 2009, Novogratz published the New York Times bestseller The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World. The book is a firsthand account of her journey from international banker to social entrepreneur and founder of Acumen. Since its publication, the book has been picked by the Carroll School of Management at Boston College, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Peace College as common reading for all incoming freshmen.[6]

Family

Jacqueline Novogratz is married to Chris Anderson, the curator of TED. She has three step-daughters, Elizabeth, Anna, and Zoe (1986-2010). Her brothers are Michael Novogratz, the president of investment management firm Fortress Investment Group, and Robert Novogratz, a designer who has been profiled in the Bravo television show 9 by Design.

Awards and fellowships

References

  1. ↑ http://www.acumen.org/areyouready/
  2. ↑ http://www.acumen.org/fellows.html
  3. ↑ http://www.acumenfund.org/about-us/our-team/jacqueline-novogratz.html
  4. ↑ http://lallyschool.rpi.edu/2010EOY
  5. ↑ Novogratz, Jacqueline (10 March 2010). "The Blue Sweater Challenge: Inspiring Social Change in Kenya". Huffington Post.
  6. ↑ http://provost.uncc.edu/read/ & http://store.peace.edu/peacecollegesummerreading-thebluesweaterbyjacquelinenovogratz.aspx
  7. ↑ Bromley, Anne. "From Accidental Banker to 'Patent Capital Leader'". UVa Today. University of Virginia. Retrieved 7 May 2013.
  8. ↑ Vision Award | Center for Social Entrepreneurship. Middlebury.edu (2015-08-13). Retrieved on 2015-08-13.
  9. ↑ http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/11/30/the_fp_top_100_global_thinkers?page=0,31
  10. ↑ "The 25 Smartest People of the Decade". The Daily Beast.
  11. ↑ University of Notre Dame. "Honorary Degree". Retrieved 20 June 2011.

External links

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