Trends in Global Philanthropy – Speaker Series
Posted in News Story
The conversation will feature Noorain Khan, Chief Innovation Officer and Vice President of the Ford Foundation, and Sushma Raman, CPNL’s Waldemar A. Nielsen Philanthropy Fellow. Join us to explore how to measure innovation, strategies for protecting democracy, and the role of philanthropy during this tumultuous time. The event will take place virtually on March 18th from 12:00-1:00 PM (ET).
Speaker Biographies:
Noorain Khan serves as vice president and chief innovation officer, a newly created executive role that will drive the Ford Foundation’s innovation strategy and commitment to accelerating the foundation and the social sector’s impact. Khan joins President Heather Gerken’s executive leadership team, overseeing the foundation’s Mission Investments and Ford Global Fellows programs and the Office of Strategy and Impact to further integrate the foundation’s ongoing findings, learning, and innovation strategies, while leading new initiatives.
Khan previously served at the Ford Foundation in several roles, concluding her nine-year tenure as senior advisor and director to former president Darren Walker. In this prior role, she built and led the first-ever program team to manage the presidential grantmaking budget and launched Ford’s work in disability rights. Under her leadership, Ford became the largest private funder of disability rights worldwide. Due to her extensive contributions to the philanthropic sector, she is the subject of a Harvard Law School case study on public sector leadership.
Khan began her career as an attorney at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in New York City. A Rhodes Scholar and PD Soros Fellow, she holds a JD from Yale Law School, an MPhil in Migration Studies from Oxford University, and a BA from Rice University.
Sushma Raman is the Waldemar A. Nielsen Philanthropy Fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Public and Nonprofit Leadership, housed at the McCourt School of Public Policy. Sushma is a philanthropic and social change strategist with over two decades of experience leading programs and organizations. She has served as the executive director of the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights at Harvard Kennedy School, a program officer at the Ford and Open Society Foundations, and President of Southern California Grantmakers. She has taught in graduate public policy schools at Harvard, UCLA, USC, and Tufts Fletcher School.
The event will take place in-person at Georgetown University’s Capitol Campus, 500 1st NW, Washington, DC 20001. Lunch will be provided.
Speaker Biographies:
Cecilia A. Conrad, Ph.D. is the founding CEO of Lever for Change and a member of its Board of Directors – Ex Officio. Dr. Conrad was formerly a Managing Director at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, where she led the MacArthur Fellows program and steered the cross-Foundation team that created MacArthur’s 100&Change—an athematic, open call competition that periodically makes a single $100 million grant to help solve a critical problem of our time. Before joining the Foundation in January 2013, Conrad had a distinguished career as both a professor of economics and an administrator at Pomona College in Claremont, CA.
Kristen J. Molyneaux, Ph.D. is President and cofounder of Lever for Change and previously served as Vice President for Program Strategy. She guides the work that helps philanthropists invest in high-impact solutions and builds the systems that made Lever for Change’s work accessible and transparent. Prior to joining Lever for Change, Dr. Molyneaux worked at the MacArthur Foundation, first as Program Officer for Girls’ Secondary Education in Developing Countries and then as Senior Program Officer for 100&Change. She has served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Uganda and Cape Verde and is a global practitioner and educator.