Jacqueline Novogratz is the founder and CEO of Acumen Fund, a nonprofit venture fund that uses “patient capital” to solve the problems of global poverty. Under her leadership, Acumen as of April 2009 had invested $40 million in more than 35 companies serving 25 million low-income customers in the developing world. She is the author of the best-selling memoir The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World, recently released in paperback by Rodale. The book chronicles her personal quest to understand poverty, and challenges readers to grant dignity to the poor and to rethink their engagement with the world. She began her career in international banking at Chase Manhattan Bank, and founded Duterimbere, a micro-finance institution in Rwanda. Prior to creating Acumen, Novogratz founded and directed The Philanthropy Workshop and The Next Generation Leadership program at the Rockefeller Foundation. She has received Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award (2008), the CASE Leadership in Social Entrepreneurship Award (2009), and AWNY’s Changing the Game Award (2009). She was recently named to Foreign Policy’s list of Top 100 Global Thinkers and Daily Beast’s 25 People of the Decade. Novogratz received her MBA from Stanford.
Affiliations
Next Generation Business Strategies for the Base of the Pyramid 