Holly Wise: Founder, Wise Solutions LLC & GBF Advisor
Through her consultancy practice, Wise Solutions LLC, Holly brings international development, corporate social responsibility, public-private alliance, and business development expertise to corporations, foundations and non-profits. She serves as a senior fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She teaches enterprise development and social entrepreneurship at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, and sits on the boards of WRAP, GlobalGiving, LivingGoods, FHI and CDS. Ms. Wise is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Holly Wise spent 26 years in the foreign service with the US Agency for International Development (USAID), achieving the diplomatic rank of Minister Counselor. She is the founder and first Secretariat Director of the Global Development Alliance, USAID’s business model that forges strategic alliances between public and private partners in addressing international development issues. Under her leadership 300 alliances were formed with $1.1 billion in USAID funding leveraging $3.8 billion in private resources for the world’s poor. In addition to overseas tours in Uganda, Kenya, Barbados, the Philippines and China, Ms. Wise served as USAID chair at the National Defense University where she taught political science, environmental courses, and published research on China.
Ms. Wise is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Connecticut College and holds advanced degrees from Yale University and the National Defense University.