9/15: Acumen CEO to talk about leadership and world change

Featured Events | Sep 09, 2014 | Claire Curry

Jacqueline Novogratz, author, TED speaker and founder and CEO of Acumen—an investment firm that seeks to change the way the world tackles poverty—will discuss the importance of impact-driven leadership with Fordham students on Monday, September 15.

Date: Monday, September 15, 2014
Time: 5:30 p.m.
Location: Pope Auditorium, Lincoln Center
Register: Click here

To date, Acumen has invested $88M in 82 companies in South Asia, East and West Africa. The firm is committed to building a global community of emerging leaders with the financial and operational skills and moral imagination to tackle worldwide issues. It does this through its Global Fellows Program, its chapters and the organizations it invests in.

“I believe that we have a chance to build a world in which all human beings can live with dignity, freedom and choice,” Ms. Novogratz said. “It starts with imagining that world and then working together.”

About the speaker:

Ms. Novogratz applied her background in international banking to tackle world poverty through “patient capital.” Prior to Acumen, she 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.

As she describes in her book, The Blue Sweater, Ms. Novogratz believes that a new form of philanthropic investing—patient capital—can change millions of lives. She currently sits on the advisory boards of Sonen Capital and the Harvard Business School Social Enterprise Initiative. She 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 for Sustainable Development.