Helene Gayle, CEO of CARE USA, will speak at Haas at 12:30 p.m. April 29 about her experiences leading one of the world’s largest aid organizations and inspiring the next generation of leaders to solve global social issues.
The event, to be held in the Wells Fargo Room, is the inaugural Distinguished Lecture of the Institute for Business and Social Impact, which launched in November. Gayle, one of the world’s top female leaders and global thinkers, will be interviewed by Professor and former Dean Laura Tyson, who is director of the new institute.
The talk is co-sponsored by the Dean’s Speaker Series; registration will be required on the Dean’s Speaker Series website as the date approaches. Boxed lunches will be provided at the event.
Gayle has served as president and CEO of CARE USA since 2006. The nonprofit is committed to reducing, and eventually ending, extreme poverty by serving individuals and families in the poorest communities in the world. CARE places special focus on working alongside poor women because, with the proper resources, women have the power to help whole families and entire communities escape poverty. Last year, CARE worked in 84 countries and reached more than 83 million people around the world.
Gayle joined CARE USA after directing the HIV, TB, and Reproductive Health Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She spent 20 years at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, focusing primarily on HIV/AIDS. Gayle holds MD and MPH degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins University.
“I always knew that I wanted to do the most that I could for the most people,” Gayle told Forbes in 2013. Forbes ranked her 67 on its “Power Women” list “because her decisions affect so many.”