THE IMPLICATIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE: STRATEGIES TO SUPPORT YOUNG CHILDREN’S HEALTHY DEVELOPMENT CONTINUING THE CONVERSATION
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Location: The White Box, Paramount
1515 Broadway, New York, NY 10036
Too Small to Fail, the early childhood initiative of the Clinton Foundation, will host a day-long convening about the impacts of climate change on young children’s healthy development.
Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton and Clinton Foundation Vice Chair Chelsea Clinton, along with leaders from the philanthropic, corporate, civic, health, climate, media, and early childhood sectors, will:
- discuss the growing body of scientific data on climate change and its impacts on young children;
- learn about promising solutions; and
- explore opportunities to build multi-sectoral Commitments-to-Action for the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) 2023 Annual Meeting.
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Featured Participants

Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton
67th Secretary of State of the United States

Chelsea Clinton, DPhil
Vice Chair, Clinton Foundation

Swati Adarkar
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and Early Learning, U.S. Department of Education

Jammie Albert
Program Manager, Early Childhood Success, National League of Cities

Georges C. Benjamin, MD
Executive Director, American Public Health Association

Chad Bolick
Institutional Consultant, Graystone Consulting, Morgan Stanley

Dana L. Bourland
Senior Vice President, The JPB Foundation

Lindsey Burghardt, MD
Chief Science Officer, Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University

Mario Cardona
Senior Advisor, Early Childhood Development and Education, White House Domestic Policy Council

Mark Del Monte
CEO, American Academy of Pediatrics

Stephanie Dreyer
Managing Director, Multimedia Strategy and Digital Content, The Rockefeller Foundation

Mayuri Ghosh
Director, Climate Resilience and Sustainability, Clinton Global Initiative

Mona Hanna-Attisha, MD
Pediatrician, Professor, Public Health Advocate, Author, Michigan State University

Liz Hurtado
National Field Manager, Moms Clean Air Force, EcoMadres

Nat Kendall-Taylor, PhD
Chief Executive Officer, FrameWorks Institute

Kristen Kane
Executive Vice President, Noggin

Gary E. Knell
Executive Chairman, Common Sense Networks, Senior Advisor, The Boston Consulting Group, Past Chairman, National Geographic Partners

Michael H. Levine, PhD
Senior Vice President of Learning and Impact, Noggin

Joan Lombardi, PhD
Visiting Scholar, Stanford Center on Early Childhood, Graduate School of Education

Dayna Long, MD
Professor, Clinical Medicine, Co-Director, UCSF Center for Child and Community Health

Kristin McSwain
Senior Advisor for Early Childhood and Director of the Mayor’s Office of Early Childhood, City of Boston

PATTI MILLER
Chief Executive Officer, Too Small to Fail

Frederica Perera, PhD
Professor of Public Health, Founding Director, Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health, Mailman School of Public Health

Meeghan Prunty
Senior Advisor, Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Doris Duke Foundation

Diana M. Rauner, PhD
President, Start Early

Catherine Russell
Executive Director - UNICEF

Laura Schifter, EdD
Senior Fellow, This Is Planet Ed, The Aspen Institute

Ralph Smith
Managing Director, Campaign for Grade-Level Reading; Former Senior Vice President, Annie E. Casey Foundation

Tonia M. Spence
Program Director, Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health, Irving Harris Foundation

Elizabeth Yee
Executive Vice President, Program Strategy, The Rockefeller Foundation
Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton

Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton
67th Secretary of State of the United States
Hillary Rodham Clinton has spent over five decades in public service as an advocate, attorney, First Lady, U.S. Senator, U.S. Secretary of State, and presidential candidate. As 67th U.S. Secretary of State, her “smart power” approach to foreign policy repositioned American diplomacy and development for the 21st century. Clinton played a central role in restoring America’s standing in the world, reasserting the United States as a Pacific power, imposing crippling sanctions on Iran and North Korea, responding to the Arab Awakening, and negotiating a ceasefire in the Middle East. Earlier, as First Lady and Senator for New York, she traveled to more than 80 countries as a champion of human rights, democracy, and opportunities for women and girls. She also worked to provide health care to millions of children, create jobs and opportunity, and support first responders who risked their lives at Ground Zero. In her historic 2016 campaign for President of the United States, Clinton won 66 million votes. She is the author of ten best-selling books, host of the podcast You and Me Both, founder of the global production studio HiddenLight Productions, Chancellor of Queen’s University Belfast, and a Professor of Practice at the School of International and Public Affairs and Presidential Fellow at Columbia World Projects at Columbia University. She is married to former U.S. President Bill Clinton, has one daughter Chelsea, and three grandchildren: Charlotte, Aidan, and Jasper.
Chelsea Clinton, DPhil

Chelsea Clinton, DPhil
Vice Chair, Clinton Foundation
As vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, Chelsea Clinton works alongside the Foundation’s leadership and partners to improve lives and inspire emerging leaders across the United States and around the world. This includes the Foundation’s early child initiative Too Small to Fail, which supports families with the resources they need to promote early brain and language development; and the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U), a global program that empowers student leaders to turn their ideas into action. A longtime public health advocate, Chelsea also serves as vice chair of the Clinton Health Access Initiative and uses her platform to increase awareness around issues such as vaccine hesitancy, childhood obesity, and health equity.
In addition to her Foundation work, Chelsea teaches at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and has written several books for young readers, including the #1 New York Times bestseller She Persisted: 13 American Women Who Changed the World as well as She Persisted Around the World, She Persisted in Sports, She Persisted in Science, Start Now! You Can Make a Difference; Don’t Let Them Disappear; It’s Your World: Get Informed, Get Inspired & Get Going; and Welcome to the Big Kids Club. She is also the co-author of The Book of Gutsy Women and Grandma’s Gardens with Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton and of Governing Global Health: Who Runs the World and Why? with Devi Sridhar. Chelsea’s podcast, In Fact with Chelsea Clinton, premiered in 2021 and she is the co-founder of HiddenLight Productions.
Chelsea holds a Bachelor of Arts from Stanford, a Master of Public Health from Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, and both a Master of Philosophy and a Doctorate in international relations from Oxford University. She lives with her husband Marc, and their children Charlotte, Aidan, and Jasper, in New York City.
Swati Adarkar

Swati Adarkar
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and Early Learning, U.S. Department of Education
Swati Adarkar is currently the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and Early Learning at the U.S. Department of Education. Most recently, she served as the National Policy Director for Start Early. Prior to this, Swati was the Co-Founder and President & CEO of the Children’s Institute in Oregon for 15 years, an early childhood policy and advocacy organization. Swati served on statewide advisory committees on early childhood for three Oregon governors. She provided the vision and leadership to launch and sustain the Early Works initiative, which aligns birth to five services and supports with elementary school. For more than thirty years, she has been a strong advocate for meeting the comprehensive needs of low-income children and families in Oregon and California and has a passion for ensuring the health and early school success of young children. Swati has served on the Advisory Boards of Attendance Works and the National P-3 Center. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies from UCLA and a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School.
Jammie Albert

Jammie Albert
Program Manager, Early Childhood Success, National League of Cities
Jammie Albert is a Program Manager for Early Childhood Success with the National League of Cities. In that role she provides technical assistance to develop and strengthen the local human infrastructure of cities and communities through tools for programmatic action to promote systems change and investments in the development and healthy growth of children. Jammie’s current focus centers around cities supporting children and families during the prenatal-to-age 3 developmental period – working with municipal leaders to strengthen policies and practices that are responsive and supportive to young children, families, and those who care for them. With extensive experience providing direct service she continues to be an advocate for children and families that are most at-promise. Jammie holds a M.A. in elementary education from Carlow University and a B.A. in mass media communications from Wilberforce University.
Georges C. Benjamin, MD

Georges C. Benjamin, MD
Executive Director, American Public Health Association
Georges C. Benjamin, MD, MACP, FNAPA, FACEP (E), is the executive director of the American Public Health Association, the nation’s oldest and largest association of public health professionals. He is also a former secretary of health for the state of Maryland. Dr. Benjamin is a graduate of the Illinois Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois College of Medicine. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.
Chad Bolick

Chad Bolick
Institutional Consultant, Graystone Consulting, Morgan Stanley
Chad Bolick is an Executive Director and Institutional Consultant with Graystone Consulting, Morgan Stanley. Based in the Bay Area, Chad is responsible for providing customized investment management and philanthropic advisory to a select group of foundation and endowment clients. Chad brings 20+ years of experience in management consulting, corporate philanthropy, foundation strategy, and nonprofit effectiveness to Graystone San Francisco.
Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Chad served as director of global partnerships at FSG where he advised foundation, nonprofit, and government clients. Prior to FSG, Chad served as director of partnerships at BSR (Business for Social Responsibility). At BSR, Chad launched HERproject, an award-winning program focused on women’s health in the apparel, footwear, and agricultural sectors across Asia and Africa. Chad started his career in Asia where he lived for 5+ years, first as executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam and later with The Asia Foundation.
Chad received his B.A. in International Relations from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his M.A. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
A commentator on modern philanthropy, Chad has presented at Aspen Ideas: Climate (Miami Beach, FL); the Skoll World Forum (Oxford, UK), CSR Asia Annual Summit (Hong Kong), Shared Value Leadership Summit (New York), and Asia IIX Impact Forum (Singapore), as well as locally in the Bay Area with the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, Battery Powered, Aspen Ideas: Climate, and TiEcon.
Chad is a member of the Impact-Driven Philanthropy Collaborative and P150 networks.
Dana L. Bourland

Dana L. Bourland
Senior Vice President, The JPB Foundation
Dana Bourland is a visionary leader with extensive experience in nonprofit leadership, partnership building, capital deployment, and strategy development and implementation. She has a deep commitment to social and environmental justice and has consistently demonstrated her ability to advance equity, diversity, and inclusion in her work. Dana developed and currently leads The JPB Foundation’s Environment Program with a goal of enabling resilient communities. Formerly Dana led environmental strategy for Enterprise Community Partners, a national affordable housing intermediary. Dana developed and oversaw all aspects of Enterprise’s award-winning Green Communities program. Dana is the author of “Gray to Green: A Call to Action on the Housing and Climate Crises.” She is a graduate of Harvard’s Graduate Program in Real Estate and holds a Master of Planning Degree from the Humphrey Institute. She was named one of Fast Company Magazine’s Most Influential Women Activists in Technology and is featured in and has contributed to numerous publications and addressed national and international audiences. Dana is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, an Ironman finisher, a potter, and an avid traveler.
Lindsey Burghardt, MD

Lindsey Burghardt, MD
Chief Science Officer, Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University
Lindsey Burghardt, MD, MPH, FAAP, is the Chief Science Officer at the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University and a practicing pediatrician. At the Center, she identifies emerging areas of scientific interest and knowledge to create the Center’s scientific agenda. Her areas of expertise include the impact of the built and natural environments on young children, including the ways in which our changing climate impacts health and development. Lindsey is the director of the Early Childhood Scientific Council on Equity and the Environment and works closely with the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. With these groups, she works to build a multidisciplinary scientific understanding of early childhood and translate that understanding for a variety of audiences, including policymakers, practitioners, and the private sector. Lindsey earned her medical degree from Yale University School of Medicine and completed her pediatric residency at Children’s Hospital Colorado, followed by a fellowship in pediatric emergency medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital. She completed her Masters in Public Health in Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Lindsey is a board member of the Massachusetts Chapter of the AAP and a former executive committee member of the AAP’s Council on Early Childhood.
Mario Cardona

Mario Cardona
Senior Advisor, Early Childhood Development and Education, White House Domestic Policy Council
Mario Cardona is the Senior Advisor for Early Childhood Development & Education on the White House Domestic Policy Council. He is on leave from Arizona State University, where he serves as a Professor of Practice and Director of Policy for the Children’s Equity Project. Previously, Mario was the Chief of Policy and Practice for Child Care Aware® of America, the largest national nonprofit focused on early care and education. He also served in the Obama Administration as the Senior Policy Advisor for Education on the White House Domestic Policy Council. Prior to his service in the Obama Administration, Mario held senior roles in the U.S. Senate, including as a principal advisor to the Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Earlier, Mario was a litigator at a national law firm and clerked for a federal judge. Mario earned a Master’s degree in education from Harvard University and his juris doctorate, with honors, from the George Washington University Law School. He is also a Pahara Institute Fellow.
Mark Del Monte

Mark Del Monte
CEO, American Academy of Pediatrics
Mark Del Monte, JD, serves as CEO/Executive Vice President of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). In this capacity, Mark leads a strong chief executive team for the organization, which serves 67,000 pediatrician, pediatric medical subspecialist, and pediatric surgical specialist members.
Prior to joining AAP in 2005, Mark served as Director of Policy and Government Affairs for the AIDS Alliance for Children, Youth & Families, a national organization advocating for children and families with HIV/AIDS. Before moving to Washington, DC, Mark worked as a lawyer in his home state of California, providing direct legal services to HIV-positive, low-income children, and families.
Mark holds a law degree from the University of California (Berkeley) and a bachelor’s degree from Gonzaga University.
Stephanie Dreyer

Stephanie Dreyer
Managing Director, Multimedia Strategy and Digital Content, The Rockefeller Foundation
Stephanie Dreyer is an experienced communicator with a proven track record of getting the job done. Over the last two decades, she has worked in the philanthropic, defense, renewable energy, and banking sectors and has honed her skills in social media, web strategy, media relations, and digital marketing. Stephanie is currently the Managing Director, Multimedia Strategy and Digital Content at The Rockefeller Foundation where she helps the Foundation reach new audiences around the world.
Mayuri Ghosh

Mayuri Ghosh
Director, Climate Resilience and Sustainability, Clinton Global Initiative
Mayuri Ghosh is a senior leader with broad international experience, driving strategic client engagements with leaders from business, government, international organizations, NGOs, and academia on Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) efforts. She has a strong focus on environmental sustainability and climate, health and well-being, and inclusive growth. Before joining the Clinton Global Initiative, Mayuri worked at the World Economic Forum and the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York, and within the private sector in India across rural and urban markets.
Mona Hanna-Attisha, MD

Mona Hanna-Attisha, MD
Pediatrician, Professor, Public Health Advocate, Author, Michigan State University
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha is the Associate Dean for Public Health and C. S. Mott Endowed Professor of Public Health at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. She is the founding director of the Pediatric Public Health Initiative, an innovative partnership of MSU and Hurley Children’s Hospital in Flint, Michigan. A pediatrician, scientist, activist, and author, Dr. Hanna-Attisha was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World and recognized as one of USA Today’s Women of the Century for her role in uncovering the Flint water crisis and leading recovery efforts. Dr. Hanna-Attisha is the author of the widely acclaimed and New York Times 100 most notable book, What the Eyes Don’t See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City.
Liz Hurtado

Liz Hurtado
National Field Manager, Moms Clean Air Force, EcoMadres
Liz Hurtado is a National Field Manager for Moms Clean Air Force supporting the EcoMadres program in its mission to equitably protect the health of Latino children and families from air pollution and climate change. Liz’s background is in the intersectionality of health equity, and she has spent years amplifying the need for diverse representation, primarily from Hispanic/Latino communities, in health research through community engagement, education, and advocacy on language justice. Her experience in community health, coupled with her life-long passion for environmental advocacy, is what led her to join the Moms Clean Air Force team. As a mother of four, Liz centers her work around protecting the most vulnerable and fighting for children’s environmental health protections. Liz’s work with EcoMadres has been featured in the Washington Post, Bloomberg, Telemundo DC, and La Opinion. Liz is a native Peruvian and lives in Virginia Beach, Virginia, with her family.
Nat Kendall-Taylor, PhD

Nat Kendall-Taylor, PhD
Chief Executive Officer, FrameWorks Institute
Nat Kendall-Taylor serves as Chief Executive Officer at the FrameWorks Institute. Nat oversees the organization’s pioneering, research-based approach to strategic communications, which uses methods from the social and behavioral sciences to measure how people understand complex socio-political issues and tests ways to reframe them to drive social change. As CEO, he leads a multi-disciplinary team of social scientists and communications practitioners who investigate ways to apply innovative framing research methods to social issues and train nonprofit organizations to put the findings into practice.
An expert in psychological anthropology and communications science, Nat publishes widely in the popular and professional press and lectures frequently in the United States and abroad. His work has appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as Science Communication, Human Organization, Applied Communications Research, Child Abuse and Neglect, and the Annals of Anthropological Practice. He has presented at numerous conferences and organizations in the United States and around the world, ranging from Harvard University and the National Academy of Sciences to the Parenting Research Centre in Australia, the Science and Society Symposium in Canada, and Amnesty International in the United Kingdom. He is a senior fellow at the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, a visiting professor at the Child Study Center at Yale School of Medicine, and a fellow at the British- American Project.
Nat joined FrameWorks in 2008; since then, he has led work across the FrameWorks portfolio, with a special focus on issues related to early childhood development and mental health, criminal justice, and aging. He has also led the expansion of FrameWorks’ work outside the United States, working in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Kenya, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. Prior to joining FrameWorks, Nat’s research focused on understanding the social and cultural factors that create health disparities and affect decision-making. He has conducted fieldwork on the Swahili coast of Kenya, where he studied pediatric epilepsy, traditional healing, and the impacts of chronic illness on family well-being, and in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, where he studied child marriage and higher education. He has also conducted ethnographic research on theories of motivation in “extreme” athletes. Nat holds a BA from Emory University and master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Kristen Kane

Kristen Kane
Executive Vice President, Noggin
Kristen Kane has dedicated her career to education, leading innovation to improve learning in large organizations and start-ups, in finance and technology, and in local and federal government. Kristen currently leads Paramount’s digital learning business as EVP of Noggin. She co-founded Sparkler, an early learning company, which was acquired by Nickelodeon (Paramount) and now operates as a non-profit. Previously, Kristen was the COO of Amplify, a K-12 education technology company. During the Bloomberg administration, Kristen served as COO of the New York City Department of Education, where she was responsible for the implementation of reforms, the small school and charter school initiatives, and oversight of daily operations. Kristen also served in the Obama administration at the Federal Communications Commission, where she led the development of strategies for applying broadband technologies in the education, healthcare, and energy sectors. She has worked at JPMorgan and NewSchools Venture Fund, raising capital for education companies and nonprofits. Kristen holds an MBA and Certificate in Public Management from Stanford and a BA from Yale.
Gary E. Knell

Gary E. Knell
Executive Chairman, Common Sense Networks, Senior Advisor, The Boston Consulting Group, Past Chairman, National Geographic Partners
Gary Knell has four decades of experience in leading some of the world’s most iconic organizations at the intersection of media, education and social impact. He has served as President and CEO of National Geographic, NPR and Sesame Workshop where he led transformational changes for the purpose of achieving their important missions, inspiring global audiences through the power of storytelling. Among his recent achievements is a breakthrough restructuring of National Geographic, fully endowing the not-for-profit, now providing grants and resources for individuals working on climate, wildlife, oceans and other critical global challenges. At the same time, the reset created a historic partnership with The Walt Disney Company, which manages the brand in commercial settings including prime placement on Disney+, the largest Instagram brand account in the world, and a global publishing empire building on the legacy of over 130 years of success.
Gary led NPR through its digital transformation and expansion into the podcasting space and built bipartisan support for its critical work, and focused Sesame Street, then in its fourth decade, toward using its amazing power with preschool kids to help bridge gaps in respect, tolerance and understanding for military families, ethnic and political rivals in the Middle East, the Balkans and Northern Ireland as well as addressing health challenges around childhood HIV infection, malaria prevention and obesity outcomes.
Today, Gary serves as a Senior Advisor to the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in its Media and Social Impact practices, as Executive Chairman of Common Sense Classroom, as Special Advisor to ESRI on consumer applications for its StoryMaps products, and Advisor to HonorEd Technologies, aiming to enable post-secondary education institutions to deliver engaging educational experiences at an enhanced scale. He was also recently appointed to the board of Seven Islands, Inc., a SPAC aimed at the intersection of media, entertainment and technology in South Asia. He is a sought after board member and counselor to several nonprofit and for profit organizations including the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, where he chairs the Nominating and Governance Committee, the US Global Leadership Coalition,, the Economic Club of Washington, WAMU (public radio in DC), and the University of California Berkeley School of Journalism. He also served on the boards of Save the Children, AARP Services and Heidrick and Struggles, the global executive search firm. Gary is married to Kim Larson, a passionate advocate for environmental and regenerative agriculture initiatives, and has four adult children, each pursuing careers improving our world. He has deep interests in film, music and soccer, not necessarily in that order.
Michael H. Levine, PhD

Michael H. Levine, PhD
Senior Vice President of Learning and Impact, Noggin
Michael H. Levine, Ph.D. is Senior Vice President of Learning and Impact for Noggin, Nickelodeon’s direct-to-consumer interactive learning platform for young children. An early learning and social policy expert, Dr. Levine is responsible for deepening Noggin’s value to children and families through dynamic content, partnerships, and interactive experiences developed for learning and impact. Dr. Levine previously spent 12 years at Sesame Workshop where he served as Chief Knowledge Officer, a member of the senior executive team responsible for driving organization-wide learning, educational partnerships, knowledge exchange, and policy leadership. He is also the Founding Executive Director of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, a pioneering thought leader in the digital media and learning field. Previously he oversaw innovative grantmaking, strategic communications and program design and scaling strategies for Carnegie Corporation of New York, the New York City Department of Education, the Mayor’s Office and Asia Society. Dr. Levine serves on numerous non-profit and double-bottom line boards including the Cooney Center, JumpStart, We Are Family Foundation and Woot Math. He received his PhD in Social Policy from the Heller School at Brandeis University and his Bachelor’s degree from Cornell University.
Joan Lombardi, PhD

Joan Lombardi, PhD
Visiting Scholar, Stanford Center on Early Childhood, Graduate School of Education
Joan Lombardi, Ph.D. is Senior Fellow at the Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues, Georgetown University and a Visiting Scholar, Graduate School of Education, Stanford Center on Early Childhood, Stanford University.
Over the past 50 years, Joan has made significant contributions in the areas of child and family policy as an innovative leader and policy advisor to national and international organizations and foundations and as a public servant. She serves on the Executive Leadership Council of the global Early Childhood Development Action Network and Chairs their Global Policy and Advocacy Advisory group and Co-Chairs the Research Forum for Early Childhood in Emergencies, in collaboration with the Moving Minds Alliance. Joan served as the first Deputy Assistant Secretary for Early Childhood during the Obama Administration and the first Director of the Child Care Bureau during the Clinton Administration.
Dayna Long, MD

Dayna Long, MD
Professor, Clinical Medicine, Co-Director, UCSF Center for Child and Community Health
Dr. Dayna Long is a Professor of Clinical Pediatrics and primary care physician at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Long founded and co-Directors the Center for Child and Community Health (CCCH). She dedicates her career to eliminating childhood health inequities that lead to poor health, financial and educational outcomes for families and young children on both individual and population levels.
Kristin McSwain

Kristin McSwain
Senior Advisor for Early Childhood and Director of the Mayor’s Office of Early Childhood, City of Boston
Kristin McSwain leads the Office of Early Childhood as Director and as a Senior Advisor to the Mayor. McSwain brings more than 10 years of experience as the Executive Director of the Boston Opportunity Agenda, working directly with families, educators, and public and private organizations across the Commonwealth to remove systemic barriers for underserved youth.
Prior to joining the Boston Opportunity Agenda, Kristin served as the Chief of Program Operations for the Corporation for National and Community Service, an independent federal agency. As Chief of Program Operations, she oversaw the day-to-day operations of the Corporation’s programs, including Senior Corps, Learn and Serve America, AmeriCorps NCCC, AmeriCorps VISTA, and AmeriCorps State and National. Kristin was appointed the Director of AmeriCorps State and National, the largest of the Corporation’s programs, in August of 2006 and named Chief of Program Operations in October of 2008.
Kristin has spent her entire professional career in education and national and community service. After graduating from The College of William and Mary, she enrolled as a corps member with Teach for America, serving as a fifth-grade teacher in St. Mary Parish, Louisiana. Kristin continued to promote quality education through Teach for America and Citizen Schools as a staff member for the next six years. In 1997, she joined the staff of the Massachusetts Service Alliance, initially directing the Learn and Serve and AmeriCorps programs. In 2003, after attending Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, she was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Alliance.
Kristin is a strong advocate for education and national service and an active participant in many volunteer and charitable organizations. She has served on the boards of Boston Cares, Friends of the Children Boston, and Voices for National Service. She currently serves on the GreenLight Fund Advisory Board, the United Way Community Impact Council, Boston’s Universal Pre-Kindergarten Advisory Board, Friends of the Kilmer, 1647 and Encore Boston Network.
Kristin lives in Roslindale with her wife and three children.
PATTI MILLER

PATTI MILLER
Chief Executive Officer, Too Small to Fail
Patti Miller oversees Too Small to Fail, the early childhood education initiative of the Clinton Foundation and its public awareness and action campaign to promote the importance of early brain and language development and support parents with tools to talk, read and sing with their young children starting at birth. Prior to joining the Foundation, Patti served as Vice President of Public Policy at Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit producer of “Sesame Street.” Patti also previously served as Vice President of the Children and the Media Program at Children Now, a national child advocacy organization. In that role, she led a broad coalition in advocacy and policy efforts to improve the media environment for children. Patti holds a master’s in education from Stanford University and a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from the University of California at Berkeley.
Frederica Perera, PhD

Frederica Perera, PhD
Professor of Public Health, Founding Director, Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health, Mailman School of Public Health
Frederica P. Perera is a professor of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and the founder of the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health She now leads the Center’s Program in Translational Research. Dr. Perera is internationally recognized for pioneering the field of molecular epidemiology, utilizing biomarkers to understand links between environmental exposures and disease. The exposures studied include air pollution, toxic chemicals, and pesticides, with particular focus on adverse effects of prenatal and early childhood exposures. Her current research addresses the multiple impacts on children’s health and development of climate change and air pollution, both due to fossil fuel emissions, and the health and economic benefits of policies to reduce those emissions. She is the author of over 400 publications, including 350 peer-reviewed articles, and has received numerous honors. Her recent book is entitled Children’s Health and the Peril of Climate Change (Oxford University Press).
Meeghan Prunty

Meeghan Prunty
Senior Advisor, Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Doris Duke Foundation
Meeghan’s career has been dedicated to advancing economic mobility and social justice – in the philanthropic, non-profit, and public policy sectors – with a focus on children and families in poverty. She spent 4 years on the leadership team of the innovative philanthropic collaborative Blue Meridian Partners – with work ranging from portfolio management to program operations to funder engagement – before launching a philanthropic advisory practice in early 2020. Currently, Meeghan is partnering with Schusterman Family Philanthropies to lead an Economic Justice portfolio, working on issues of economic mobility, tax equity, income support, and safety net reform. She also partners with the Child Well-Being Program at the Doris Duke Foundation, helping lead a cross-sector effort to develop a meaningful alternative to the current child welfare system. Meeghan is a long-time senior adviser to former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin; with him and others, she helped develop and lead The Hamilton Project, an economic policy project at the Brookings Institution promoting inclusive economic growth.
Meeghan worked in the Clinton White House as Associate Director of Research & Strategic Planning, working primarily (and proudly!) on health care reform. She is a veteran of the Clinton campaign, from the New Hampshire primary through the pioneering “War Room” in Little Rock. After leaving the White House, she directed the ‘Children & the Media Program’ at Children Now, a national children’s advocacy organization. She started her career in International Corporate Finance at Smith Barney.
Meeghan holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BS in International Economics from Georgetown. She is a board member of The Hamilton Project and Power of Two, and previously served on the national boards of Year Up and Zero to Three. She brings lived experience as a foster mom and a court-appointed advocate for children and families in the child welfare system, along with the humility that both parenting and partnering impart.
Diana M. Rauner, PhD

Diana M. Rauner, PhD
President, Start Early
Diana Mendley Rauner, Ph.D., learned early from her parents the importance of participating in the community. Witnessing educational inequities early-on in her life led her to a long-term commitment to address these issues. Today, Diana serves as President of Start Early, a public-private partnership advancing quality early learning for families with children, before birth through their earliest years, to help close the opportunity gap.
Start Early develops direct center-based and home-based programs and services to children and families, provides professional development tools and trainings, and champions effective public policies and funding. Start Early believes that strengthening early childhood systems will help our nation’s youngest children build the resiliency they will need to navigate and adapt to the challenges of a changing climate.
Diana also serves as the Co-Chair of the Early Years Climate Action Task Force, co-leading the group through developing the first-ever U.S. Early Years Climate Action Plan, set for release in Fall 2023.
Diana earned a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of Chicago, an M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business, and a B.A. from Yale University. She and her husband, Bruce, are the proud parents of six children and grandparents of two grandchildren.
Catherine Russell

Catherine Russell
Executive Director - UNICEF
Catherine Russell serves as UNICEF’s 8th Executive Director, overseeing the organization’s work for children in over 190 countries and territories.
Ms. Russell brings to the role decades of experience in public service, with a focus on empowering underserved communities around the world and developing high-impact policies and programmes to support women and girls, including in humanitarian crises. She has extensive experience building and managing diverse workforces, as well as mobilizing resources and political support for a broad range of initiatives.
From 2020 to 2022, Ms. Russell served under President Joe Biden as Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel. She previously served from 2013 to 2017 as Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues at the U.S. Department of State, where she integrated women’s issues across all elements of U.S. foreign policy, represented the United States in more than 45 countries, and worked in partnership with other governments, multilateral organizations, and civil society. She was the principal architect of the groundbreaking “U.S. Global Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls.”
Previously, Ms. Russell served as Deputy Assistant to the President in the White House administration of President Barack Obama, Senior Advisor on International Women’s Issues on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Associate Deputy Attorney General at the Department of Justice, and Staff Director of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Before re-entering government service in 2020, she taught at the Harvard Kennedy School as an Institute of Politics Fellow. She also served as the board co-chair of the Women’s Foreign Policy Group, and as a board member of Women for Women International, the Sesame Street Advisory Board, the KIVA Advisory Council, and the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s Trust Women initiative.
Ms. Russell was appointed Executive Director by the UN Secretary General on February 1, 2022.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, magna cum laude, from Boston College and a Juris Doctor degree from the George Washington University Law School.
Laura Schifter, EdD

Laura Schifter, EdD
Senior Fellow, This Is Planet Ed, The Aspen Institute
Laura Schifter is a senior fellow with the Aspen Institute where she founded and directs This Is Planet Ed, an initiative to unlock the power of education as a force for climate action, solutions, and environmental justice to empower the rising generation to lead a sustainable, resilient, and equitable future. She is also a lecturer on education with the Harvard Graduate School of Education where she teaches courses on education, climate change, and policy.
Previously, she worked as a policy and research consultant with clients including Education 2020, the Massachusetts Department of Education, and the U.S. Department of Justice. She also served as a senior education and disability advisor for Rep. George Miller (D-CA) on the Committee on Education and Labor, an education fellow for Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and a fellow with the Century Foundation. After graduating from college, she taught elementary school in San Francisco. Schifter earned an Ed.D. in education policy, leadership, and instructional practice and an Ed.M. in Mind, Brain, and Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a B.A. in American studies from Amherst College.
Ralph Smith

Ralph Smith
Managing Director, Campaign for Grade-Level Reading; Former Senior Vice President, Annie E. Casey Foundation
Ralph Smith is the managing director of the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, an effort to increase rates of third-grade reading proficiency for children from low-income families that includes a network of more than 350+ communities, representing 46 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Canada — with 5,200 local organizations and more than 500 state and local funders (including over 200 United Ways).
Previously, as Senior Vice President for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Smith led the Making Connections initiative, a comprehensive effort to help communities improve outcomes for children by strengthening families and neighborhoods. Smith served on the Foundation’s Senior Leadership Team from 1994 through 2016.
Smith taught Corporations and Securities Law and Education Law and Policy as a member of the Law Faculty at the University of Pennsylvania for two decades, during which time he also served as Chief of Staff and Chief Operating Officer for the School District of Philadelphia and as a senior advisor to Philadelphia’s mayor on children and family policy.
Smith led efforts to design and implement the school district’s landmark voluntary desegregation plan, negotiate some of the nation’s first education reform-driven teacher contracts, and develop Children Achieving, a district-wide blueprint supported by the Annenberg Challenge.
Smith is the founding director of both the National Center on Fathers and Families and the Philadelphia Children’s Network, and a national leader of the Responsible Fatherhood movement. He has served on governing and/or advisory boards of Alliance for Early Success, Center for Urban Redevelopment Excellence, Corporation for Public Broadcasting Ready to Learn Initiative, Family Independence Initiative Commission, FluentSEEDS, Planet Word Museum, Reading Recovery Council and Too Small to Fail.
Among Smith’s recent honors are the Fred Rogers Leadership in Philanthropy Award from Grantmakers for Children, Youth and Family and the Jane Addams Distinguished Leadership Award from the United Neighborhood Centers of America.
Tonia M. Spence

Tonia M. Spence
Program Director, Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health, Irving Harris Foundation
Tonia M. Spence believes in the power of healthy relationships in shaping young children’s lives. She is a long-time advocate, collaborator, and strategist, with a deep commitment to dismantling systemic oppression. As a new clinician, Tonia’s passion to learn led her to a Fellowship program at Yale’s Child Development Center Outpatient Clinic in New Haven, where she was able to strengthen her clinical understanding of young children and how systems effect families and communities. Being in New Haven, where the dichotomy of wealth and poverty was so evident, Tonia recognized how racial tension and stress added an additional layer to the trauma of the children and families she was serving. She understood that only with the additional lens of race, class and privilege could she truly serve infants, children, and families well. She has dedicated her career to influencing systems, organizations, and leaders in shifting processes leading to greater access and equity. Skilled at creating systems-level and high-quality programs aimed at developing growth, productivity, and revenue. Tonia is a strong visionary with an ability to identify and address the micro- and macro-level issues that drive organizational change and work toward strategic implementation. In 2021, she joined the Irving Harris Foundation as the Program Director of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health where she has been working to revise the portfolio impact strategy to center racial equity, movement building, and advancing the IEMCH two special initiatives (PDN and Diversity Informed Tenets). Tonia holds a Masters in Special Education from Bank Street College of Education and a Masters in Social Work from Columbia School of Social Work.
Elizabeth Yee

Elizabeth Yee
Executive Vice President, Program Strategy, The Rockefeller Foundation
Elizabeth Yee is the Executive Vice President of Programs. She oversees The Foundation’s portfolio of global programs, regional offices and learning and impact team, and leads the advancement of the Foundation’s strategic priorities. She is the former Chief of Staff and joined The Foundation in 2019 as the Managing Director of Climate and Resilience.
From 2015-2019, Liz held various executive leadership roles at 100 Resilient Cities, a sponsored project of The Foundation, where she led the development of strategic partnerships and collaborated with member cities and investors to develop and mobilize financial solutions.
Before joining 100 Resilient Cities, Liz co-led the Public Power and Utilities practice at Barclays Capital. During her seventeen years in financial services at Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers and Barclays Capital, Liz originated, developed, structured and executed over $30 billion of infrastructure, energy, commodities and derivative transactions. She and her team were two time “Bond Buyer Deal of the Year” recipients for their innovative approaches to renewable energy finance.
She was appointed to SEforALL’s Board, which aims to accelerate and deliver the solutions needed to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 7 – access to affordable and clean energy by 2030, serves on the Investment Committee for the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet as well as the Advisory Boards for Co-Impact’s Foundational Fund and Gender Advisory Boards. She co-chairs the Climate Coalition for Lower Manhattan and is a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Liz is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
Agenda
Welcoming Remarks
10:00 am - 10:10 am ETThe Impact on Young Children: What We Know
10:10 am - 10:55 am ETThe Impact on Young Children: What We Know
Setting the context for the day, this panel will elevate climate change as an urgent public health crisis and highlight the population-level impacts we are witnessing, including the disproportionate impact on current and historically marginalized populations including young children. Panelists will discuss the importance of place on the developing brain, and how the environments in which children live affect what they are exposed to which then affects maturing biological systems, positively and negatively. The conversation will help to “connect the dots” in aligning efforts focused on healthy development and climate change.
Moderator
Chelsea Clinton, DPhil Vice Chair, Clinton Foundation View bio
Panelists
Georges C. Benjamin, MD Executive Director, American Public Health Association View bio
Lindsey Burghardt, MD Chief Science Officer, Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University View bio
Mark Del Monte CEO, American Academy of Pediatrics View bio
The Local Perspective
10:55 am - 11:30 am ETThe Local Perspective
This session will explore themes introduced in the opening session, providing specific examples of how our changing climate is impacting the lives of young children and families on a daily basis. Panelists will reiterate climate’s disproportionate impacts as an environmental justice issue, discuss the emerging science related to adverse early childhood experiences, and explore the promise of intersectional solutions in which philanthropic, corporate, and civic leaders can all participate.
Moderator
Chelsea Clinton, DPhil Vice Chair, Clinton Foundation View bio
Panelists
Mona Hanna-Attisha, MD Pediatrician, Professor, Public Health Advocate, Author, Michigan State University View bio
Dayna Long, MD Professor, Clinical Medicine, Co-Director, UCSF Center for Child and Community Health View bio
Framing the Narrative: What Resonates and Who Cares?
11:30 am - 12:15 pm ETFraming the Narrative: What Resonates and Who Cares?
Panelists will examine the current narrative around climate change and environmental justice and explore what it would take to raise awareness and urgency regarding the impact of our changing climate on young children. The session will raise the merit of potentially de-politicizing the issue if approached from a child-centric lens, and highlight opportunities for deeper engagement across sectors.
Moderator
Stephanie Dreyer Managing Director, Multimedia Strategy and Digital Content, The Rockefeller Foundation View bio
Panelists
Liz Hurtado National Field Manager, Moms Clean Air Force, EcoMadres View bio
Nat Kendall-Taylor, PhD Chief Executive Officer, FrameWorks Institute View bio
Gary E. Knell Executive Chairman, Common Sense Networks, Senior Advisor, The Boston Consulting Group, Past Chairman, National Geographic Partners View bio
Lunch
12:15 pm - 1:15 pm ETMomentum at the National Level
1:15 pm - 1:55 pm ETMomentum at the National Level
This session will highlight policies, investments and initiatives being spearheaded at the national level, and explore lessons learned from K12 and other sectors that could be applied to early childhood. Panelists will also discuss opportunities to build upon and leverage the resilience of the early childhood sector in climate resiliency plans and approaches.
Moderator
Ralph Smith Managing Director, Campaign for Grade-Level Reading; Former Senior Vice President, Annie E. Casey Foundation View bio
Panelists
Mario Cardona Senior Advisor, Early Childhood Development and Education, White House Domestic Policy Council View bio
Diana M. Rauner, PhD President, Start Early View bio
Laura Schifter, EdD Senior Fellow, This Is Planet Ed, The Aspen Institute View bio
Leadership at the Local Level
1:55 pm - 2:40 pm ETLeadership at the Local Level
Through its Cities for Early Childhood Success – Equity Starts Early Initiative, the National League of Cities partners with cities to address the intersections of climate and environmental challenges on maternal and child health and well-being. Panelists will provide reflections on the initiative and local approaches and highlight resources and tools that can help guide municipal efforts.
Moderator
Swati Adarkar Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and Early Learning, U.S. Department of Education View bio
Panelists
Jammie Albert Program Manager, Early Childhood Success, National League of Cities View bio
Kristin McSwain Senior Advisor for Early Childhood and Director of the Mayor’s Office of Early Childhood, City of Boston View bio
Respondent
Joan Lombardi, PhD Visiting Scholar, Stanford Center on Early Childhood, Graduate School of Education View bio
Break
2:40 pm - 3:00 pm ETAuthor Conversation: Children’s Health and the Peril of Climate Change
3:00 pm - 3:15 pm ETAuthor Conversation: Children’s Health and the Peril of Climate Change
Renowned researcher and author Dr. Frederica Perera, Founding Director, Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health, Mailman School of Public Health, discusses her recent book and provides her reflections on both the problem and promising solutions being discussed throughout the day.
Pathways for Philanthropy
3:15 pm - 4:00 pm ETPathways for Philanthropy
Using a climate philanthropy engagement framework included in a recent Aspen Institute/Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management report, philanthropic leaders will highlight opportunities to align child and maternal well-being within the growing philanthropic focus and commitment to climate and environmental justice. Panelists will provide reflections on the framework and discuss the opportunities and challenges of aligning early childhood and education priorities with environmental justice and climate sustainability.
Moderator
Meeghan Prunty Senior Advisor, Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Doris Duke Foundation View bio
Panelists
Chad Bolick Institutional Consultant, Graystone Consulting, Morgan Stanley View bio
Dana L. Bourland Senior Vice President, The JPB Foundation View bio
Tonia M. Spence Program Director, Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health, Irving Harris Foundation View bio
CGI: The Power of Partnerships
4:00 pm - 4:15 pm ETCGI: The Power of Partnerships
CGI brings together established and emerging global leaders to create and implement solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges. Attendees will learn about CGI and opportunities to create and announce multi-sectoral Commitments-to-Action – new, specific, and measurable actions in climate resilience, health equity, and inclusive economic recovery and growth – at the CGI Annual Meeting this September.
Mayuri Ghosh Director, Climate Resilience and Sustainability, Clinton Global Initiative View bio
Opportunities Ahead
4:15 pm - 4:55 pm ETOpportunities Ahead
During this closing plenary, Secretary Clinton will engage with panelists to summarize key themes from throughout the day, and to highlight opportunities for hope and action going forward. Panelists will discuss the broader global context – both the scale of the problem and potential solutions – and reiterate engagement opportunities across sectors. Attendees will depart informed about climate’s devastating impact on young children’s healthy development inspired by the promising solutions and initiatives discussed throughout the day, and hopefully eager to begin exploring multi-sectoral opportunities for action.
Closing
4:55 pm - 5:00 pm ETClosing
Closing
PATTI MILLER Chief Executive Officer, Too Small to Fail View bio
Reception
5:00 pm - 6:00 pm ETKristen Kane

Kristen Kane
Executive Vice President, Noggin
Kristen Kane has dedicated her career to education, leading innovation to improve learning in large organizations and start-ups, in finance and technology, and in local and federal government. Kristen currently leads Paramount’s digital learning business as EVP of Noggin. She co-founded Sparkler, an early learning company, which was acquired by Nickelodeon (Paramount) and now operates as a non-profit. Previously, Kristen was the COO of Amplify, a K-12 education technology company. During the Bloomberg administration, Kristen served as COO of the New York City Department of Education, where she was responsible for the implementation of reforms, the small school and charter school initiatives, and oversight of daily operations. Kristen also served in the Obama administration at the Federal Communications Commission, where she led the development of strategies for applying broadband technologies in the education, healthcare, and energy sectors. She has worked at JPMorgan and NewSchools Venture Fund, raising capital for education companies and nonprofits. Kristen holds an MBA and Certificate in Public Management from Stanford and a BA from Yale.
Kevin Thurm

Kevin Thurm
Chief Executive Officer, Clinton Foundation
Kevin Thurm is the chief executive officer of the Clinton Foundation. He previously served as a senior counselor at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where he worked with Secretary Sylvia Burwell and HHS senior leadership on a number of cross-cutting strategic initiatives, including continuing implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Prior to that role, Kevin held various leadership positions at Citigroup, including chief compliance officer and deputy general counsel. Before joining Citigroup, Thurm served as the deputy secretary and chief of staff for the Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary Donna E. Shalala. He received a bachelor’s from Tufts University in 1983; a bachelor’s/master’s from Oxford University in 1986, where he was a Rhodes Scholar; and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1989.
PATTI MILLER

PATTI MILLER
Chief Executive Officer, Too Small to Fail
Patti Miller oversees Too Small to Fail, the early childhood education initiative of the Clinton Foundation and its public awareness and action campaign to promote the importance of early brain and language development and support parents with tools to talk, read and sing with their young children starting at birth. Prior to joining the Foundation, Patti served as Vice President of Public Policy at Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit producer of “Sesame Street.” Patti also previously served as Vice President of the Children and the Media Program at Children Now, a national child advocacy organization. In that role, she led a broad coalition in advocacy and policy efforts to improve the media environment for children. Patti holds a master’s in education from Stanford University and a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from the University of California at Berkeley.
Chelsea Clinton, DPhil

Chelsea Clinton, DPhil
Vice Chair, Clinton Foundation
As vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, Chelsea Clinton works alongside the Foundation’s leadership and partners to improve lives and inspire emerging leaders across the United States and around the world. This includes the Foundation’s early child initiative Too Small to Fail, which supports families with the resources they need to promote early brain and language development; and the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U), a global program that empowers student leaders to turn their ideas into action. A longtime public health advocate, Chelsea also serves as vice chair of the Clinton Health Access Initiative and uses her platform to increase awareness around issues such as vaccine hesitancy, childhood obesity, and health equity.
In addition to her Foundation work, Chelsea teaches at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and has written several books for young readers, including the #1 New York Times bestseller She Persisted: 13 American Women Who Changed the World as well as She Persisted Around the World, She Persisted in Sports, She Persisted in Science, Start Now! You Can Make a Difference; Don’t Let Them Disappear; It’s Your World: Get Informed, Get Inspired & Get Going; and Welcome to the Big Kids Club. She is also the co-author of The Book of Gutsy Women and Grandma’s Gardens with Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton and of Governing Global Health: Who Runs the World and Why? with Devi Sridhar. Chelsea’s podcast, In Fact with Chelsea Clinton, premiered in 2021 and she is the co-founder of HiddenLight Productions.
Chelsea holds a Bachelor of Arts from Stanford, a Master of Public Health from Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, and both a Master of Philosophy and a Doctorate in international relations from Oxford University. She lives with her husband Marc, and their children Charlotte, Aidan, and Jasper, in New York City.
Georges C. Benjamin, MD

Georges C. Benjamin, MD
Executive Director, American Public Health Association
Georges C. Benjamin, MD, MACP, FNAPA, FACEP (E), is the executive director of the American Public Health Association, the nation’s oldest and largest association of public health professionals. He is also a former secretary of health for the state of Maryland. Dr. Benjamin is a graduate of the Illinois Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois College of Medicine. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.
Lindsey Burghardt, MD

Lindsey Burghardt, MD
Chief Science Officer, Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University
Lindsey Burghardt, MD, MPH, FAAP, is the Chief Science Officer at the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University and a practicing pediatrician. At the Center, she identifies emerging areas of scientific interest and knowledge to create the Center’s scientific agenda. Her areas of expertise include the impact of the built and natural environments on young children, including the ways in which our changing climate impacts health and development. Lindsey is the director of the Early Childhood Scientific Council on Equity and the Environment and works closely with the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. With these groups, she works to build a multidisciplinary scientific understanding of early childhood and translate that understanding for a variety of audiences, including policymakers, practitioners, and the private sector. Lindsey earned her medical degree from Yale University School of Medicine and completed her pediatric residency at Children’s Hospital Colorado, followed by a fellowship in pediatric emergency medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital. She completed her Masters in Public Health in Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Lindsey is a board member of the Massachusetts Chapter of the AAP and a former executive committee member of the AAP’s Council on Early Childhood.
Mark Del Monte

Mark Del Monte
CEO, American Academy of Pediatrics
Mark Del Monte, JD, serves as CEO/Executive Vice President of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). In this capacity, Mark leads a strong chief executive team for the organization, which serves 67,000 pediatrician, pediatric medical subspecialist, and pediatric surgical specialist members.
Prior to joining AAP in 2005, Mark served as Director of Policy and Government Affairs for the AIDS Alliance for Children, Youth & Families, a national organization advocating for children and families with HIV/AIDS. Before moving to Washington, DC, Mark worked as a lawyer in his home state of California, providing direct legal services to HIV-positive, low-income children, and families.
Mark holds a law degree from the University of California (Berkeley) and a bachelor’s degree from Gonzaga University.
Chelsea Clinton, DPhil

Chelsea Clinton, DPhil
Vice Chair, Clinton Foundation
As vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, Chelsea Clinton works alongside the Foundation’s leadership and partners to improve lives and inspire emerging leaders across the United States and around the world. This includes the Foundation’s early child initiative Too Small to Fail, which supports families with the resources they need to promote early brain and language development; and the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U), a global program that empowers student leaders to turn their ideas into action. A longtime public health advocate, Chelsea also serves as vice chair of the Clinton Health Access Initiative and uses her platform to increase awareness around issues such as vaccine hesitancy, childhood obesity, and health equity.
In addition to her Foundation work, Chelsea teaches at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and has written several books for young readers, including the #1 New York Times bestseller She Persisted: 13 American Women Who Changed the World as well as She Persisted Around the World, She Persisted in Sports, She Persisted in Science, Start Now! You Can Make a Difference; Don’t Let Them Disappear; It’s Your World: Get Informed, Get Inspired & Get Going; and Welcome to the Big Kids Club. She is also the co-author of The Book of Gutsy Women and Grandma’s Gardens with Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton and of Governing Global Health: Who Runs the World and Why? with Devi Sridhar. Chelsea’s podcast, In Fact with Chelsea Clinton, premiered in 2021 and she is the co-founder of HiddenLight Productions.
Chelsea holds a Bachelor of Arts from Stanford, a Master of Public Health from Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, and both a Master of Philosophy and a Doctorate in international relations from Oxford University. She lives with her husband Marc, and their children Charlotte, Aidan, and Jasper, in New York City.
Mona Hanna-Attisha, MD

Mona Hanna-Attisha, MD
Pediatrician, Professor, Public Health Advocate, Author, Michigan State University
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha is the Associate Dean for Public Health and C. S. Mott Endowed Professor of Public Health at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. She is the founding director of the Pediatric Public Health Initiative, an innovative partnership of MSU and Hurley Children’s Hospital in Flint, Michigan. A pediatrician, scientist, activist, and author, Dr. Hanna-Attisha was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World and recognized as one of USA Today’s Women of the Century for her role in uncovering the Flint water crisis and leading recovery efforts. Dr. Hanna-Attisha is the author of the widely acclaimed and New York Times 100 most notable book, What the Eyes Don’t See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City.
Dayna Long, MD

Dayna Long, MD
Professor, Clinical Medicine, Co-Director, UCSF Center for Child and Community Health
Dr. Dayna Long is a Professor of Clinical Pediatrics and primary care physician at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Long founded and co-Directors the Center for Child and Community Health (CCCH). She dedicates her career to eliminating childhood health inequities that lead to poor health, financial and educational outcomes for families and young children on both individual and population levels.
Stephanie Dreyer

Stephanie Dreyer
Managing Director, Multimedia Strategy and Digital Content, The Rockefeller Foundation
Stephanie Dreyer is an experienced communicator with a proven track record of getting the job done. Over the last two decades, she has worked in the philanthropic, defense, renewable energy, and banking sectors and has honed her skills in social media, web strategy, media relations, and digital marketing. Stephanie is currently the Managing Director, Multimedia Strategy and Digital Content at The Rockefeller Foundation where she helps the Foundation reach new audiences around the world.
Liz Hurtado

Liz Hurtado
National Field Manager, Moms Clean Air Force, EcoMadres
Liz Hurtado is a National Field Manager for Moms Clean Air Force supporting the EcoMadres program in its mission to equitably protect the health of Latino children and families from air pollution and climate change. Liz’s background is in the intersectionality of health equity, and she has spent years amplifying the need for diverse representation, primarily from Hispanic/Latino communities, in health research through community engagement, education, and advocacy on language justice. Her experience in community health, coupled with her life-long passion for environmental advocacy, is what led her to join the Moms Clean Air Force team. As a mother of four, Liz centers her work around protecting the most vulnerable and fighting for children’s environmental health protections. Liz’s work with EcoMadres has been featured in the Washington Post, Bloomberg, Telemundo DC, and La Opinion. Liz is a native Peruvian and lives in Virginia Beach, Virginia, with her family.
Nat Kendall-Taylor, PhD

Nat Kendall-Taylor, PhD
Chief Executive Officer, FrameWorks Institute
Nat Kendall-Taylor serves as Chief Executive Officer at the FrameWorks Institute. Nat oversees the organization’s pioneering, research-based approach to strategic communications, which uses methods from the social and behavioral sciences to measure how people understand complex socio-political issues and tests ways to reframe them to drive social change. As CEO, he leads a multi-disciplinary team of social scientists and communications practitioners who investigate ways to apply innovative framing research methods to social issues and train nonprofit organizations to put the findings into practice.
An expert in psychological anthropology and communications science, Nat publishes widely in the popular and professional press and lectures frequently in the United States and abroad. His work has appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as Science Communication, Human Organization, Applied Communications Research, Child Abuse and Neglect, and the Annals of Anthropological Practice. He has presented at numerous conferences and organizations in the United States and around the world, ranging from Harvard University and the National Academy of Sciences to the Parenting Research Centre in Australia, the Science and Society Symposium in Canada, and Amnesty International in the United Kingdom. He is a senior fellow at the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, a visiting professor at the Child Study Center at Yale School of Medicine, and a fellow at the British- American Project.
Nat joined FrameWorks in 2008; since then, he has led work across the FrameWorks portfolio, with a special focus on issues related to early childhood development and mental health, criminal justice, and aging. He has also led the expansion of FrameWorks’ work outside the United States, working in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Kenya, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. Prior to joining FrameWorks, Nat’s research focused on understanding the social and cultural factors that create health disparities and affect decision-making. He has conducted fieldwork on the Swahili coast of Kenya, where he studied pediatric epilepsy, traditional healing, and the impacts of chronic illness on family well-being, and in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, where he studied child marriage and higher education. He has also conducted ethnographic research on theories of motivation in “extreme” athletes. Nat holds a BA from Emory University and master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Gary E. Knell

Gary E. Knell
Executive Chairman, Common Sense Networks, Senior Advisor, The Boston Consulting Group, Past Chairman, National Geographic Partners
Gary Knell has four decades of experience in leading some of the world’s most iconic organizations at the intersection of media, education and social impact. He has served as President and CEO of National Geographic, NPR and Sesame Workshop where he led transformational changes for the purpose of achieving their important missions, inspiring global audiences through the power of storytelling. Among his recent achievements is a breakthrough restructuring of National Geographic, fully endowing the not-for-profit, now providing grants and resources for individuals working on climate, wildlife, oceans and other critical global challenges. At the same time, the reset created a historic partnership with The Walt Disney Company, which manages the brand in commercial settings including prime placement on Disney+, the largest Instagram brand account in the world, and a global publishing empire building on the legacy of over 130 years of success.
Gary led NPR through its digital transformation and expansion into the podcasting space and built bipartisan support for its critical work, and focused Sesame Street, then in its fourth decade, toward using its amazing power with preschool kids to help bridge gaps in respect, tolerance and understanding for military families, ethnic and political rivals in the Middle East, the Balkans and Northern Ireland as well as addressing health challenges around childhood HIV infection, malaria prevention and obesity outcomes.
Today, Gary serves as a Senior Advisor to the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in its Media and Social Impact practices, as Executive Chairman of Common Sense Classroom, as Special Advisor to ESRI on consumer applications for its StoryMaps products, and Advisor to HonorEd Technologies, aiming to enable post-secondary education institutions to deliver engaging educational experiences at an enhanced scale. He was also recently appointed to the board of Seven Islands, Inc., a SPAC aimed at the intersection of media, entertainment and technology in South Asia. He is a sought after board member and counselor to several nonprofit and for profit organizations including the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, where he chairs the Nominating and Governance Committee, the US Global Leadership Coalition,, the Economic Club of Washington, WAMU (public radio in DC), and the University of California Berkeley School of Journalism. He also served on the boards of Save the Children, AARP Services and Heidrick and Struggles, the global executive search firm. Gary is married to Kim Larson, a passionate advocate for environmental and regenerative agriculture initiatives, and has four adult children, each pursuing careers improving our world. He has deep interests in film, music and soccer, not necessarily in that order.
Ralph Smith

Ralph Smith
Managing Director, Campaign for Grade-Level Reading; Former Senior Vice President, Annie E. Casey Foundation
Ralph Smith is the managing director of the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, an effort to increase rates of third-grade reading proficiency for children from low-income families that includes a network of more than 350+ communities, representing 46 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Canada — with 5,200 local organizations and more than 500 state and local funders (including over 200 United Ways).
Previously, as Senior Vice President for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Smith led the Making Connections initiative, a comprehensive effort to help communities improve outcomes for children by strengthening families and neighborhoods. Smith served on the Foundation’s Senior Leadership Team from 1994 through 2016.
Smith taught Corporations and Securities Law and Education Law and Policy as a member of the Law Faculty at the University of Pennsylvania for two decades, during which time he also served as Chief of Staff and Chief Operating Officer for the School District of Philadelphia and as a senior advisor to Philadelphia’s mayor on children and family policy.
Smith led efforts to design and implement the school district’s landmark voluntary desegregation plan, negotiate some of the nation’s first education reform-driven teacher contracts, and develop Children Achieving, a district-wide blueprint supported by the Annenberg Challenge.
Smith is the founding director of both the National Center on Fathers and Families and the Philadelphia Children’s Network, and a national leader of the Responsible Fatherhood movement. He has served on governing and/or advisory boards of Alliance for Early Success, Center for Urban Redevelopment Excellence, Corporation for Public Broadcasting Ready to Learn Initiative, Family Independence Initiative Commission, FluentSEEDS, Planet Word Museum, Reading Recovery Council and Too Small to Fail.
Among Smith’s recent honors are the Fred Rogers Leadership in Philanthropy Award from Grantmakers for Children, Youth and Family and the Jane Addams Distinguished Leadership Award from the United Neighborhood Centers of America.
Mario Cardona

Mario Cardona
Senior Advisor, Early Childhood Development and Education, White House Domestic Policy Council
Mario Cardona is the Senior Advisor for Early Childhood Development & Education on the White House Domestic Policy Council. He is on leave from Arizona State University, where he serves as a Professor of Practice and Director of Policy for the Children’s Equity Project. Previously, Mario was the Chief of Policy and Practice for Child Care Aware® of America, the largest national nonprofit focused on early care and education. He also served in the Obama Administration as the Senior Policy Advisor for Education on the White House Domestic Policy Council. Prior to his service in the Obama Administration, Mario held senior roles in the U.S. Senate, including as a principal advisor to the Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Earlier, Mario was a litigator at a national law firm and clerked for a federal judge. Mario earned a Master’s degree in education from Harvard University and his juris doctorate, with honors, from the George Washington University Law School. He is also a Pahara Institute Fellow.
Diana M. Rauner, PhD

Diana M. Rauner, PhD
President, Start Early
Diana Mendley Rauner, Ph.D., learned early from her parents the importance of participating in the community. Witnessing educational inequities early-on in her life led her to a long-term commitment to address these issues. Today, Diana serves as President of Start Early, a public-private partnership advancing quality early learning for families with children, before birth through their earliest years, to help close the opportunity gap.
Start Early develops direct center-based and home-based programs and services to children and families, provides professional development tools and trainings, and champions effective public policies and funding. Start Early believes that strengthening early childhood systems will help our nation’s youngest children build the resiliency they will need to navigate and adapt to the challenges of a changing climate.
Diana also serves as the Co-Chair of the Early Years Climate Action Task Force, co-leading the group through developing the first-ever U.S. Early Years Climate Action Plan, set for release in Fall 2023.
Diana earned a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of Chicago, an M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business, and a B.A. from Yale University. She and her husband, Bruce, are the proud parents of six children and grandparents of two grandchildren.
Laura Schifter, EdD

Laura Schifter, EdD
Senior Fellow, This Is Planet Ed, The Aspen Institute
Laura Schifter is a senior fellow with the Aspen Institute where she founded and directs This Is Planet Ed, an initiative to unlock the power of education as a force for climate action, solutions, and environmental justice to empower the rising generation to lead a sustainable, resilient, and equitable future. She is also a lecturer on education with the Harvard Graduate School of Education where she teaches courses on education, climate change, and policy.
Previously, she worked as a policy and research consultant with clients including Education 2020, the Massachusetts Department of Education, and the U.S. Department of Justice. She also served as a senior education and disability advisor for Rep. George Miller (D-CA) on the Committee on Education and Labor, an education fellow for Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and a fellow with the Century Foundation. After graduating from college, she taught elementary school in San Francisco. Schifter earned an Ed.D. in education policy, leadership, and instructional practice and an Ed.M. in Mind, Brain, and Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a B.A. in American studies from Amherst College.
Swati Adarkar

Swati Adarkar
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and Early Learning, U.S. Department of Education
Swati Adarkar is currently the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and Early Learning at the U.S. Department of Education. Most recently, she served as the National Policy Director for Start Early. Prior to this, Swati was the Co-Founder and President & CEO of the Children’s Institute in Oregon for 15 years, an early childhood policy and advocacy organization. Swati served on statewide advisory committees on early childhood for three Oregon governors. She provided the vision and leadership to launch and sustain the Early Works initiative, which aligns birth to five services and supports with elementary school. For more than thirty years, she has been a strong advocate for meeting the comprehensive needs of low-income children and families in Oregon and California and has a passion for ensuring the health and early school success of young children. Swati has served on the Advisory Boards of Attendance Works and the National P-3 Center. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies from UCLA and a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School.
Jammie Albert

Jammie Albert
Program Manager, Early Childhood Success, National League of Cities
Jammie Albert is a Program Manager for Early Childhood Success with the National League of Cities. In that role she provides technical assistance to develop and strengthen the local human infrastructure of cities and communities through tools for programmatic action to promote systems change and investments in the development and healthy growth of children. Jammie’s current focus centers around cities supporting children and families during the prenatal-to-age 3 developmental period – working with municipal leaders to strengthen policies and practices that are responsive and supportive to young children, families, and those who care for them. With extensive experience providing direct service she continues to be an advocate for children and families that are most at-promise. Jammie holds a M.A. in elementary education from Carlow University and a B.A. in mass media communications from Wilberforce University.
Kristin McSwain

Kristin McSwain
Senior Advisor for Early Childhood and Director of the Mayor’s Office of Early Childhood, City of Boston
Kristin McSwain leads the Office of Early Childhood as Director and as a Senior Advisor to the Mayor. McSwain brings more than 10 years of experience as the Executive Director of the Boston Opportunity Agenda, working directly with families, educators, and public and private organizations across the Commonwealth to remove systemic barriers for underserved youth.
Prior to joining the Boston Opportunity Agenda, Kristin served as the Chief of Program Operations for the Corporation for National and Community Service, an independent federal agency. As Chief of Program Operations, she oversaw the day-to-day operations of the Corporation’s programs, including Senior Corps, Learn and Serve America, AmeriCorps NCCC, AmeriCorps VISTA, and AmeriCorps State and National. Kristin was appointed the Director of AmeriCorps State and National, the largest of the Corporation’s programs, in August of 2006 and named Chief of Program Operations in October of 2008.
Kristin has spent her entire professional career in education and national and community service. After graduating from The College of William and Mary, she enrolled as a corps member with Teach for America, serving as a fifth-grade teacher in St. Mary Parish, Louisiana. Kristin continued to promote quality education through Teach for America and Citizen Schools as a staff member for the next six years. In 1997, she joined the staff of the Massachusetts Service Alliance, initially directing the Learn and Serve and AmeriCorps programs. In 2003, after attending Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, she was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Alliance.
Kristin is a strong advocate for education and national service and an active participant in many volunteer and charitable organizations. She has served on the boards of Boston Cares, Friends of the Children Boston, and Voices for National Service. She currently serves on the GreenLight Fund Advisory Board, the United Way Community Impact Council, Boston’s Universal Pre-Kindergarten Advisory Board, Friends of the Kilmer, 1647 and Encore Boston Network.
Kristin lives in Roslindale with her wife and three children.
Joan Lombardi, PhD

Joan Lombardi, PhD
Visiting Scholar, Stanford Center on Early Childhood, Graduate School of Education
Joan Lombardi, Ph.D. is Senior Fellow at the Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues, Georgetown University and a Visiting Scholar, Graduate School of Education, Stanford Center on Early Childhood, Stanford University.
Over the past 50 years, Joan has made significant contributions in the areas of child and family policy as an innovative leader and policy advisor to national and international organizations and foundations and as a public servant. She serves on the Executive Leadership Council of the global Early Childhood Development Action Network and Chairs their Global Policy and Advocacy Advisory group and Co-Chairs the Research Forum for Early Childhood in Emergencies, in collaboration with the Moving Minds Alliance. Joan served as the first Deputy Assistant Secretary for Early Childhood during the Obama Administration and the first Director of the Child Care Bureau during the Clinton Administration.
Michael H. Levine, PhD

Michael H. Levine, PhD
Senior Vice President of Learning and Impact, Noggin
Michael H. Levine, Ph.D. is Senior Vice President of Learning and Impact for Noggin, Nickelodeon’s direct-to-consumer interactive learning platform for young children. An early learning and social policy expert, Dr. Levine is responsible for deepening Noggin’s value to children and families through dynamic content, partnerships, and interactive experiences developed for learning and impact. Dr. Levine previously spent 12 years at Sesame Workshop where he served as Chief Knowledge Officer, a member of the senior executive team responsible for driving organization-wide learning, educational partnerships, knowledge exchange, and policy leadership. He is also the Founding Executive Director of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, a pioneering thought leader in the digital media and learning field. Previously he oversaw innovative grantmaking, strategic communications and program design and scaling strategies for Carnegie Corporation of New York, the New York City Department of Education, the Mayor’s Office and Asia Society. Dr. Levine serves on numerous non-profit and double-bottom line boards including the Cooney Center, JumpStart, We Are Family Foundation and Woot Math. He received his PhD in Social Policy from the Heller School at Brandeis University and his Bachelor’s degree from Cornell University.
Frederica Perera, PhD

Frederica Perera, PhD
Professor of Public Health, Founding Director, Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health, Mailman School of Public Health
Frederica P. Perera is a professor of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and the founder of the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health She now leads the Center’s Program in Translational Research. Dr. Perera is internationally recognized for pioneering the field of molecular epidemiology, utilizing biomarkers to understand links between environmental exposures and disease. The exposures studied include air pollution, toxic chemicals, and pesticides, with particular focus on adverse effects of prenatal and early childhood exposures. Her current research addresses the multiple impacts on children’s health and development of climate change and air pollution, both due to fossil fuel emissions, and the health and economic benefits of policies to reduce those emissions. She is the author of over 400 publications, including 350 peer-reviewed articles, and has received numerous honors. Her recent book is entitled Children’s Health and the Peril of Climate Change (Oxford University Press).
Michael H. Levine, PhD

Michael H. Levine, PhD
Senior Vice President of Learning and Impact, Noggin
Michael H. Levine, Ph.D. is Senior Vice President of Learning and Impact for Noggin, Nickelodeon’s direct-to-consumer interactive learning platform for young children. An early learning and social policy expert, Dr. Levine is responsible for deepening Noggin’s value to children and families through dynamic content, partnerships, and interactive experiences developed for learning and impact. Dr. Levine previously spent 12 years at Sesame Workshop where he served as Chief Knowledge Officer, a member of the senior executive team responsible for driving organization-wide learning, educational partnerships, knowledge exchange, and policy leadership. He is also the Founding Executive Director of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, a pioneering thought leader in the digital media and learning field. Previously he oversaw innovative grantmaking, strategic communications and program design and scaling strategies for Carnegie Corporation of New York, the New York City Department of Education, the Mayor’s Office and Asia Society. Dr. Levine serves on numerous non-profit and double-bottom line boards including the Cooney Center, JumpStart, We Are Family Foundation and Woot Math. He received his PhD in Social Policy from the Heller School at Brandeis University and his Bachelor’s degree from Cornell University.
Frederica Perera, PhD

Frederica Perera, PhD
Professor of Public Health, Founding Director, Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health, Mailman School of Public Health
Frederica P. Perera is a professor of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and the founder of the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health She now leads the Center’s Program in Translational Research. Dr. Perera is internationally recognized for pioneering the field of molecular epidemiology, utilizing biomarkers to understand links between environmental exposures and disease. The exposures studied include air pollution, toxic chemicals, and pesticides, with particular focus on adverse effects of prenatal and early childhood exposures. Her current research addresses the multiple impacts on children’s health and development of climate change and air pollution, both due to fossil fuel emissions, and the health and economic benefits of policies to reduce those emissions. She is the author of over 400 publications, including 350 peer-reviewed articles, and has received numerous honors. Her recent book is entitled Children’s Health and the Peril of Climate Change (Oxford University Press).
Meeghan Prunty

Meeghan Prunty
Senior Advisor, Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Doris Duke Foundation
Meeghan’s career has been dedicated to advancing economic mobility and social justice – in the philanthropic, non-profit, and public policy sectors – with a focus on children and families in poverty. She spent 4 years on the leadership team of the innovative philanthropic collaborative Blue Meridian Partners – with work ranging from portfolio management to program operations to funder engagement – before launching a philanthropic advisory practice in early 2020. Currently, Meeghan is partnering with Schusterman Family Philanthropies to lead an Economic Justice portfolio, working on issues of economic mobility, tax equity, income support, and safety net reform. She also partners with the Child Well-Being Program at the Doris Duke Foundation, helping lead a cross-sector effort to develop a meaningful alternative to the current child welfare system. Meeghan is a long-time senior adviser to former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin; with him and others, she helped develop and lead The Hamilton Project, an economic policy project at the Brookings Institution promoting inclusive economic growth.
Meeghan worked in the Clinton White House as Associate Director of Research & Strategic Planning, working primarily (and proudly!) on health care reform. She is a veteran of the Clinton campaign, from the New Hampshire primary through the pioneering “War Room” in Little Rock. After leaving the White House, she directed the ‘Children & the Media Program’ at Children Now, a national children’s advocacy organization. She started her career in International Corporate Finance at Smith Barney.
Meeghan holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BS in International Economics from Georgetown. She is a board member of The Hamilton Project and Power of Two, and previously served on the national boards of Year Up and Zero to Three. She brings lived experience as a foster mom and a court-appointed advocate for children and families in the child welfare system, along with the humility that both parenting and partnering impart.
Chad Bolick

Chad Bolick
Institutional Consultant, Graystone Consulting, Morgan Stanley
Chad Bolick is an Executive Director and Institutional Consultant with Graystone Consulting, Morgan Stanley. Based in the Bay Area, Chad is responsible for providing customized investment management and philanthropic advisory to a select group of foundation and endowment clients. Chad brings 20+ years of experience in management consulting, corporate philanthropy, foundation strategy, and nonprofit effectiveness to Graystone San Francisco.
Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Chad served as director of global partnerships at FSG where he advised foundation, nonprofit, and government clients. Prior to FSG, Chad served as director of partnerships at BSR (Business for Social Responsibility). At BSR, Chad launched HERproject, an award-winning program focused on women’s health in the apparel, footwear, and agricultural sectors across Asia and Africa. Chad started his career in Asia where he lived for 5+ years, first as executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam and later with The Asia Foundation.
Chad received his B.A. in International Relations from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his M.A. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
A commentator on modern philanthropy, Chad has presented at Aspen Ideas: Climate (Miami Beach, FL); the Skoll World Forum (Oxford, UK), CSR Asia Annual Summit (Hong Kong), Shared Value Leadership Summit (New York), and Asia IIX Impact Forum (Singapore), as well as locally in the Bay Area with the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, Battery Powered, Aspen Ideas: Climate, and TiEcon.
Chad is a member of the Impact-Driven Philanthropy Collaborative and P150 networks.
Dana L. Bourland

Dana L. Bourland
Senior Vice President, The JPB Foundation
Dana Bourland is a visionary leader with extensive experience in nonprofit leadership, partnership building, capital deployment, and strategy development and implementation. She has a deep commitment to social and environmental justice and has consistently demonstrated her ability to advance equity, diversity, and inclusion in her work. Dana developed and currently leads The JPB Foundation’s Environment Program with a goal of enabling resilient communities. Formerly Dana led environmental strategy for Enterprise Community Partners, a national affordable housing intermediary. Dana developed and oversaw all aspects of Enterprise’s award-winning Green Communities program. Dana is the author of “Gray to Green: A Call to Action on the Housing and Climate Crises.” She is a graduate of Harvard’s Graduate Program in Real Estate and holds a Master of Planning Degree from the Humphrey Institute. She was named one of Fast Company Magazine’s Most Influential Women Activists in Technology and is featured in and has contributed to numerous publications and addressed national and international audiences. Dana is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, an Ironman finisher, a potter, and an avid traveler.
Tonia M. Spence

Tonia M. Spence
Program Director, Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health, Irving Harris Foundation
Tonia M. Spence believes in the power of healthy relationships in shaping young children’s lives. She is a long-time advocate, collaborator, and strategist, with a deep commitment to dismantling systemic oppression. As a new clinician, Tonia’s passion to learn led her to a Fellowship program at Yale’s Child Development Center Outpatient Clinic in New Haven, where she was able to strengthen her clinical understanding of young children and how systems effect families and communities. Being in New Haven, where the dichotomy of wealth and poverty was so evident, Tonia recognized how racial tension and stress added an additional layer to the trauma of the children and families she was serving. She understood that only with the additional lens of race, class and privilege could she truly serve infants, children, and families well. She has dedicated her career to influencing systems, organizations, and leaders in shifting processes leading to greater access and equity. Skilled at creating systems-level and high-quality programs aimed at developing growth, productivity, and revenue. Tonia is a strong visionary with an ability to identify and address the micro- and macro-level issues that drive organizational change and work toward strategic implementation. In 2021, she joined the Irving Harris Foundation as the Program Director of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health where she has been working to revise the portfolio impact strategy to center racial equity, movement building, and advancing the IEMCH two special initiatives (PDN and Diversity Informed Tenets). Tonia holds a Masters in Special Education from Bank Street College of Education and a Masters in Social Work from Columbia School of Social Work.
Mayuri Ghosh

Mayuri Ghosh
Director, Climate Resilience and Sustainability, Clinton Global Initiative
Mayuri Ghosh is a senior leader with broad international experience, driving strategic client engagements with leaders from business, government, international organizations, NGOs, and academia on Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) efforts. She has a strong focus on environmental sustainability and climate, health and well-being, and inclusive growth. Before joining the Clinton Global Initiative, Mayuri worked at the World Economic Forum and the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York, and within the private sector in India across rural and urban markets.
Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton

Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton
67th Secretary of State of the United States
Hillary Rodham Clinton has spent over five decades in public service as an advocate, attorney, First Lady, U.S. Senator, U.S. Secretary of State, and presidential candidate. As 67th U.S. Secretary of State, her “smart power” approach to foreign policy repositioned American diplomacy and development for the 21st century. Clinton played a central role in restoring America’s standing in the world, reasserting the United States as a Pacific power, imposing crippling sanctions on Iran and North Korea, responding to the Arab Awakening, and negotiating a ceasefire in the Middle East. Earlier, as First Lady and Senator for New York, she traveled to more than 80 countries as a champion of human rights, democracy, and opportunities for women and girls. She also worked to provide health care to millions of children, create jobs and opportunity, and support first responders who risked their lives at Ground Zero. In her historic 2016 campaign for President of the United States, Clinton won 66 million votes. She is the author of ten best-selling books, host of the podcast You and Me Both, founder of the global production studio HiddenLight Productions, Chancellor of Queen’s University Belfast, and a Professor of Practice at the School of International and Public Affairs and Presidential Fellow at Columbia World Projects at Columbia University. She is married to former U.S. President Bill Clinton, has one daughter Chelsea, and three grandchildren: Charlotte, Aidan, and Jasper.
Catherine Russell

Catherine Russell
Executive Director - UNICEF
Catherine Russell serves as UNICEF’s 8th Executive Director, overseeing the organization’s work for children in over 190 countries and territories.
Ms. Russell brings to the role decades of experience in public service, with a focus on empowering underserved communities around the world and developing high-impact policies and programmes to support women and girls, including in humanitarian crises. She has extensive experience building and managing diverse workforces, as well as mobilizing resources and political support for a broad range of initiatives.
From 2020 to 2022, Ms. Russell served under President Joe Biden as Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel. She previously served from 2013 to 2017 as Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues at the U.S. Department of State, where she integrated women’s issues across all elements of U.S. foreign policy, represented the United States in more than 45 countries, and worked in partnership with other governments, multilateral organizations, and civil society. She was the principal architect of the groundbreaking “U.S. Global Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls.”
Previously, Ms. Russell served as Deputy Assistant to the President in the White House administration of President Barack Obama, Senior Advisor on International Women’s Issues on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Associate Deputy Attorney General at the Department of Justice, and Staff Director of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Before re-entering government service in 2020, she taught at the Harvard Kennedy School as an Institute of Politics Fellow. She also served as the board co-chair of the Women’s Foreign Policy Group, and as a board member of Women for Women International, the Sesame Street Advisory Board, the KIVA Advisory Council, and the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s Trust Women initiative.
Ms. Russell was appointed Executive Director by the UN Secretary General on February 1, 2022.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, magna cum laude, from Boston College and a Juris Doctor degree from the George Washington University Law School.
Elizabeth Yee

Elizabeth Yee
Executive Vice President, Program Strategy, The Rockefeller Foundation
Elizabeth Yee is the Executive Vice President of Programs. She oversees The Foundation’s portfolio of global programs, regional offices and learning and impact team, and leads the advancement of the Foundation’s strategic priorities. She is the former Chief of Staff and joined The Foundation in 2019 as the Managing Director of Climate and Resilience.
From 2015-2019, Liz held various executive leadership roles at 100 Resilient Cities, a sponsored project of The Foundation, where she led the development of strategic partnerships and collaborated with member cities and investors to develop and mobilize financial solutions.
Before joining 100 Resilient Cities, Liz co-led the Public Power and Utilities practice at Barclays Capital. During her seventeen years in financial services at Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers and Barclays Capital, Liz originated, developed, structured and executed over $30 billion of infrastructure, energy, commodities and derivative transactions. She and her team were two time “Bond Buyer Deal of the Year” recipients for their innovative approaches to renewable energy finance.
She was appointed to SEforALL’s Board, which aims to accelerate and deliver the solutions needed to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 7 – access to affordable and clean energy by 2030, serves on the Investment Committee for the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet as well as the Advisory Boards for Co-Impact’s Foundational Fund and Gender Advisory Boards. She co-chairs the Climate Coalition for Lower Manhattan and is a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Liz is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
PATTI MILLER

PATTI MILLER
Chief Executive Officer, Too Small to Fail
Patti Miller oversees Too Small to Fail, the early childhood education initiative of the Clinton Foundation and its public awareness and action campaign to promote the importance of early brain and language development and support parents with tools to talk, read and sing with their young children starting at birth. Prior to joining the Foundation, Patti served as Vice President of Public Policy at Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit producer of “Sesame Street.” Patti also previously served as Vice President of the Children and the Media Program at Children Now, a national child advocacy organization. In that role, she led a broad coalition in advocacy and policy efforts to improve the media environment for children. Patti holds a master’s in education from Stanford University and a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from the University of California at Berkeley.