Olivia Leland

Olivia Leland brings twenty years of experience in philanthropy, government, and the nonprofit sector to her role as founder and CEO of Co-Impact, a global collaborative for systems change launched in November 2017. Current core partners include Richard Chandler, Bill & Melinda Gates, Jeff Skoll, Romesh Wadhwani, and The Rockefeller Foundation. She has spent the last three years building Co-Impact and researching the gaps in aligning philanthropy, social impact leaders and large scale change.

In addition to being the CEO of Co-Impact, Olivia also serves as a managing director at The Rockefeller Foundation, focusing on bringing collaborative approaches to the Foundation’s initiatives.

Olivia worked with Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett as the founding director of the Giving Pledge, an effort to help address society’s most pressing problems by encouraging philanthropy globally. In this role, she was responsible for building out the concept from inception as well as overseeing the strategy and implementation for this effort which now has more than 170 families committed from around the world, and provides a forum for this group to discuss challenges, successes and failures, and how to be smarter about giving. Previously, she led a cross-foundation strategy effort at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, served as associate director for financial and private sector development at the Millennium Challenge Corporation, as an independent consultant focusing on microfinance and private sector development, and as a strategy consultant at Monitor Group focusing on branding, market research and venture philanthropy.

Olivia received her AB in Social Studies from Harvard University and MSc in Development Management from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She sits on the Board of the Full Frame Initiative, a nonprofit organization that works to break cycles of poverty and violence through systems change, and was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2014. She lives with her husband and three children in London, UK, and holds dual US/French nationality.

"Education is the backbone of human progress in the 21st century, which is why I’m delighted to join the Global Teacher Prize Academy. I look forward to recognizing exceptional teachers from around the world who are improving the world one child at a time."