| Melanie Brown Senior Program Officer, US Policy and Advocacy Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Melanie R. Brown is a global speaker and writer on racial justice, philanthropy and Black women’s intersectional leadership across the charitable sector. She began her career as an educator, teaching in Washington, D.C., Beijing, China and Hong Kong, before transitioning into philanthropy. With nearly 13 years in the field, Melanie’s grantmaking has focused on accelerating academic achievement for Black and Latinx students, dismantling systems of exclusionary discipline, advancing parent and youth organizing, disarming deficit narratives about Black men in the media and advocating for the rights of students of color with disabilities. She is currently a senior program officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation where she focuses on constituent engagement across the foundation’s education, economic and health priorities in the United States and Canada. Melanie is also an Atlantic Fellow in Social and Economic Equity at the London School of Economics. She has written for Alliance Magazine, the world’s leading publication for philanthropy and social investment and addressed audiences in Havana, Cuba, Oxford, UK and Cape Town, South Africa. She serves on boards for the American University Alumni Association and the Women’s Funding Network, an international network of women’s funds. Melanie earned degrees from American, Harvard and Carnegie Mellon universities. She is a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and resides in Washington, D.C. with her wife, Natalie. | |
| Sarah Haacke Byrd Executive Director Women Moving Millions As Executive Director of Women Moving Millions, Sarah is responsible for building strategy and scale around WMM’s mission for greater impact in gender equality. For two decades, Sarah has been building, guiding, and leading non-profit organizations in Boston, Washington, D.C., and New York. She most recently served as Managing Director of the Joyful Heart Foundation leading the strategy to mandate the testing of rape kits nationwide. Sarah brings extensive experience in financial and operational management, strategy, fundraising, and external affairs to WMM. She shares a deep personal commitment to our space and has been described as a “joyful warrior” going to battle for women and girls every day. Sarah is a graduate of the University of Minnesota and holds a Masters in Positive Organizational Development from Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. | |
| Lucy Lee Senior Associate Volition Capital Lucy joined Volition in 2020 and focuses on investing in enterprise software companies in the Internet of Things, process automation and infrastructure spaces. Before joining Volition, Lucy was an investor in the Goldman Sachs Growth Equity team in San Francisco where she focused on making growth stage investments in enterprise software businesses. During her time there, she helped close a $250mm Series A investment in Automation Anywhere and a $37mm Series C investment in Cogito. She began her career as an analyst in Goldman’s Industrials Investment Banking Group in New York. Lucy obtained her BA in Comparative Literature from Princeton where she specialized in French and Chinese and wrote her senior thesis about KFC in China. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. | |
| Sue McCabe CEO Philanthropy New Zealand Sue will open the webinar with a welcome from Philanthropy New Zealand. Sue has a diverse professional and volunteering background spanning public, not-for-profit and private sectors. She has previously held not-for-profit Chief Executive roles, as well as public sector communication management positions. She is a co-founder and trustee of not-for-profit the Community Comms Collective; and co-founder and director of social enterprise The Good Registry. | |
| Tuti Scott Interim CEO Tides Tuti serves as the Interim CEO of the Board of Directors of Tides, a leading global foundation and nonprofit accelerator, and a founding board member of Women Win. Tuti approaches her work with the drive and commitment of a lifelong athlete and is an aggressive, competent, and goal-oriented gender equity warrior. She is a proud intersectional feminist and investor in women. As founder of Changemaker Strategies, Tuti B. Scott is a consultant and coach to high-achieving leaders and teams working on the front lines of social change. She was the producer for the What Will it Take Movements "Women and Money" event in September 2019, which focused on turning new knowledge into action in the gender lens investing space. A founding partner in The New Search Collaborative, a high touch comprehensive search firm, Tuti offers matches of the highest caliber. | |
| Jane Sloane Senior Director for Women's Empowerment and Gender Equality The Asia Foundation Jane Sloane leads The Asia Foundation’s programs to empower women and promote gender equality. She has over thirty years of experience working in international development and over fifteen years of experience in leadership roles focused on advancing women’s rights and promoting gender equality around the world. Prior to joining the Foundation, Sloane spent four years as vice president of Programs with the Global Fund for Women, where she led a team of program staff in managing Global Fund for Women’s global grant-making and programmatic initiatives. She earlier served as vice president of Development with Women’s World Banking (WWB) in New York focused on WWB’s Center for Microfinance Leadership, an extended Girls’ Savings Program, and new technologies in support of women’s savings. Prior to this she was executive director of International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA), based in Melbourne, Australia, supporting women’s rights organizations across Asia and the Pacific. Sloane was founding CEO of the Social Entrepreneurs Network in Australia, and held executive positions with social sector organizations including World Vision, AusAID, and Marie Stopes International. She also worked in Papua New Guinea and the Fiji Islands. She is a recipient of a Global Ambassadors Award from the Advance Foundation, a Woman of Distinction Award from the Asia Pacific Women’s Business Council, a Churchill Fellowship, an Australian Government Endeavour Fellowship, and a Human Rights Medal from the Vietnam Women’s Union. Sloane is an advisory member of the Centre on Women, Peace and Security at the London School of Economics, and serves on the Board of the International Women’s Funding Network. | |
