Advisory Board

Barbara Bush ‘04 is the NBA’s Head of Social Responsibility where she leads the league’s social impact efforts. In this role, she works with NBA offices across the globe to utilize the convening power of basketball to execute thoughtful, community-driven strategies focused on sustainability, health equity and wellness, civic engagement, and social justice. Prior to joining the NBA, Barbara was Executive-in-Residence at Schmidt Futures, a venture firm and foundation focused on technology & society, shared prosperity, and scientific benefit. In this role, she supported racial justice, global health, and COVID-19 investments and programs, along with some of the world’s most talented tech and policy problem solvers by leading the International Strategy Forum. Barbara is co-founder and board member of Global Health Corps (GHC), an organization that mobilizes young leaders to solve the world’s most pressing health issues. Barbara served as GHC’s CEO for its first 9 years. Bush and her co-founders are united by the belief that health is a human right and that their generation must build the world where this is realized. Since 2009, GHC has placed thousands of young young leaders on the front lines of health equity in East Africa, Southern Africa, and the United States, developing a cadre of creative, effective, and compassionate change makers. Previously, Barbara worked for the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum and Red Cross Children’s Hospital in South Africa. Bush is a member of the board of directors of Partners In Health and Friends of the Global Fight for AIDS, TB, and Malaria. She is a Skoll Foundation Social Entrepreneur, a Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation Social Entrepreneur, a fellow of the Echoing Green Foundation, and a member of the Yale Institute for Global Health Advisory Board. In 2011, Barbara was named one of Glamour magazine’s Women of the Year, in 2013 she was recognized as one of Newsweek’s Women of Impact, and in 2015 she was named to Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business list. In October 2017, Barbara released the number one NYTimes best seller Sisters First, a memoir she co-authored with her twin. In November 2019, Barbara and her sister released the children’s version of Sisters First, also a number one NYTimes best seller, followed by The Superpower Sisterhood in 2022, and Love Comes First in 2023. Barbara graduated from Harvard Kennedy School with a Master in Public Administration as a fellow with the Center for Public Leadership and Yale University with a BA in Humanities.

Rosa DeLauro is the Congresswoman from Connecticut’s Third Congressional District, which stretches from the Long Island Sound and New Haven, to the Naugatuck Valley and Waterbury. Rosa serves in the Democratic leadership as Co-Chair of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, and she is the Chair of the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee, where she oversees our nation’s investments in education, health, and job training and worker protection employment. Rosa also serves on the subcommittee responsible for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, where she oversees funding for food and drug safety. Soon after earning degrees from Marymount College and Columbia University, Rosa followed her parents’ footsteps into public service, serving as the first Executive Director of EMILY’s List, a national organization dedicated to increasing the number of women in elected office; Executive Director of Countdown ‘87, the national campaign that successfully stopped U.S. military aid to the Nicaraguan Contras; and as Chief of Staff to U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd. In 1990, Rosa was elected to the House of Representatives, and she has served as the Congresswoman from Connecticut’s Third Congressional District ever since.

Dr. Awele Elumelu is the Chairperson of Avon Healthcare Limited, Nigeria’s leading health insurance provider, and the Founder and Chairman of Avon Medical, a network of full-service clinics and onsite facilities with presence across Nigeria. Dr. Elumelu serves as a Director on the Board of Heirs Holdings, a family-owned investment company committed to improving lives and transforming Africa, and is the Co-founder of The Tony Elumelu Foundation, the leading philanthropy empowering entrepreneurs and championing entrepreneurship in Africa. She oversees the healthcare investments in the Heirs Holdings’ portfolio where she focuses on expanding and enhancing access to quality healthcare and achieving universal healthcare coverage in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, and across Africa. She enjoys reading and running in her spare time.

Julie Damgard Frist ’93 currently serves as a director of Liberty Broadband Corporation, a company whose assets include Charter Communications, Inc., one of the largest providers of cable services in the United States. She previously served as vice chair of the board of directors of CapStar Financial Holdings, which she co-founded in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2008. Frist devotes a substantial amount of time to non-profit board service, most notably the Frist Foundation, the Board of Dean’s Advisors at Harvard Business School, the City of Belle Meade (Finance and Budget Committee) and the Yale Institute for Global Health. Through this work, she has helped address inequities in education and healthcare. Prior board experiences in education include St. Paul’s School, The Ensworth School, and Teach for America–Nashville. She also co-chaired the major gifts committee for Harvard Business School’s Class of 1997, which set fundraising records for both 15th and 20th reunions. Julie graduated from Yale College in 1993 and earned her MBA at Harvard Business School in 1997. After Yale, she worked in New York City for Goldman Sachs in the Investment Banking Division and returned there after HBS to join their Private Client Group. Julie then left Goldman to work in private equity until she moved to Nashville, TN in 2000. Julie resides in Nashville with her husband, Tommy Frist III, and their three children.

Dr. Jeffrey P. Koplan is Senior Strategic Advisor for CHAMPS, Principal Investigator for IANPHI and the Global Health Institute-China Tobacco Control Partnership. Dr. Koplan founded the Emory Global Health Institute (EGHI) in 2006. He served as the institute's Director and as Emory University's Vice President for Global Health until 2021. A former Director (1998-2002) and 26-year veteran of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Koplan began his public health career in the early 1970s as a member of the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service. He has worked on virtually every major public health issue, including infectious diseases such as smallpox and HIV/AIDS, environmental issues such as the Bhopal chemical disaster, and the health toll of tobacco and chronic diseases around the globe. From 1994 to 1998, he pursued his interest in enhancing the interactions between clinical medicine and public health by leading the Prudential Center for Health Care Research, a nationally recognized health services research organization. He has extensive international experience including assignments in Bangladesh and Trinidad and Tobago, and extensive work experience in many countries including China, India, Guatemala, and Hungary. He has worked in collaborative relationships with Chinese health officials since his first visit to China in 1980, as leader of the US-PRC Public Health – Health Services Research Team. His work has included US-PRC bilateral projects, World Bank missions and World Health Organization consultations. He is an Honorary Professor of the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine and Honorary Advisor 001 of the Chinese CDC. He chairs the visiting committee to the Harvard School of Public Health, the Advisory Committee to the CDC of Nigeria and the Population Health ERG panel of the Wellcome Trust. He serves as a member of the Independent Monitoring Board for Polio Eradication (WHO and partners). Dr. Koplan is a graduate of Yale College, the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, and the Harvard School of Public Health. He is a Master of the American College of Physicians and a member of the U.S. Institute of Medicine. He has served on many advisory groups and consultancies in the U.S. and overseas, and has had several international academic appointments. He has written more than 220 scientific papers. He is a trustee of the China Medical Board, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Marcus Foundation, and a former trustee of Yale University.

Tsitsi Masiyiwa is an African philanthropist, social entrepreneur, and champion for gender equality. In 1996, she co-founded Higherlife Foundation with her husband, Strive. The foundation works across education, health, food security, and disaster preparedness to support African countries to achieve upper-middle income status. In 2017, Tsitsi established Delta Philanthropies as a vehicle for impact investing and grant-making. Mrs Masiyiwa is the Chair of Higherlife Foundation and Delta Philanthropies. Tsitsi is also the Chair of Co-Impact and the Chair of END Fund. As a result of her work and experience establishing and growing Higherlife Foundation over the last twenty-six years, Tsitsi has become an advisor and thought partner to universities, national leaders, and social entrepreneurs on issues of education, health, leadership development, gender, and youth empowerment.

Dr Mara McAdams received her Bachelor’s Degree with Distinction in History of Art from Yale University before attending medical school at New York University. She completed medical residency training in Internal Medicine - Primary Care at NYU, developing her clinical acumen alongside knowledge and skills in medical education. After obtaining board certification in Internal Medicine, she moved to Singapore and joined Duke-NUS, a graduate medical school collaboration between Duke University and National University of Singapore, as a founding faculty member. Since joining Duke-NUS in 2007, Dr McAdams has held numerous and varied roles. She co-directed the preclinical doctoring course developing frameworks for teaching and evaluating history taking, interpersonal skills and professionalism. She created and managed the school’s standardized patient programme to facilitate training and testing of students’ communication and clinical skills. She blueprinted, developed and administered the school’s high-stakes clinical skills exams managing all aspects of the assessment as well as logistics for multi-day, multi-site examinations. In 2013, she was appointed Assistant Dean, Student Affairs. She worked closely with student leaders to facilitate the development of a greater sense of community and connection within the student body, and to develop a trusting collaboration between the students and the school. In 2016 she expanded her support and development portfolio as Associate Dean, Student Affairs and Alumni Relations. Dr McAdams established the Duke-NUS Medical Alumni’s signature event, the Duke-NUS Dialogues. These oversubscribed discussions are held twice-yearly, connecting the alumni and students with prominent clinicians, top scientific researchers and government leaders. Currently, Dr McAdams is Assistant Professor in the Office of Education where she trains medical students’ emotional intelligence, team dynamics and adaptive resilience, champions the incorporation of the medical humanities in the curriculum, and advances coaching services for students, faculty and staff in the academic medical centre. She is passionate about developing people and teams and creating a resilient and supportive organisational culture. Dr McAdams lives in Singapore with her husband, David Hand, and their three children.

Anu Menda, innovator and change-maker, founded and took forward the RMZ Foundation to uplift the communities it serves through leadership, well-conceived collaborations, and creative avantgarde transformations that embody the ‘Being the Change’ maxim. Under her stewardship, the Foundation’s diverse and dynamic public contemporary art programs transform communal venues into riveting, sought-after and accessible community spaces for events sustaining art and ideas, and providing in-depth understanding of art’s role and relevance in society. Accentuate Art, Anu’s key directive for the Foundation, breathes creative life into community spaces with a futuristic focus, beyond home and office walls. Integrating non-profit Galleries and Popup Pavilions in planned Art Centers res into real-estate assets, the Foundation has targeted 500 public art installations in major Indian cities, Anu’s creative contribution to urban spaces resonates with her intent to help evolve an enriched society where art permeates life’s every aspect. It is Anu’s and the Foundation’s mission to make art available to all populations and communities, served or underserved, and provide direct support to, and facilitate partnerships between, emerging young artists and contemporary art legends/masters. Anu also co-founded a leading impact-investing platform, that offers premium resources, smart capital and sustained mentorship to support outstanding early-stage social enterprises factored on global social innovation. Her mission objective and 5-year plan for the Foundry is to incubate 250 innovative and resilient high-impact social impact entrepreneurial ventures that address complex and critical problems in the developing world. Grounded in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, The initiative is designed for significantly accelerating the growth of enterprises addressing tackling health, climate change, sustainable cities, future of work, infrastructure and innovation – through unwavering focus on Urban Technologies, Health Tech and Social Enterprise.

Indra Nooyi ('80, Yale School of Management) served as CEO and Chairman of PepsiCo from 2006 to 2019.  In this role, Mrs. Nooyi was the chief architect of Performance with Purpose, PepsiCo’s pledge to do what’s right for the business by being responsive to the needs of the world around us. As part of Performance with Purpose, PepsiCo was focused on delivering sustained growth by making more nutritious products, limiting its environmental footprint and protecting the planet, and empowering its associates and people in the communities it serves. Nooyi currently serves on the boards of Amazon, Philips, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and is an independent director of the International Cricket Council. Additionally, Nooyi was the Class of 1951 Chair for the Study of Leadership at West Point, where she helped fulfill the mission of developing leaders of character. In 2021, Nooy was elected to the board of trustees for the National Gallery of Art. Nooyi is the author of the best-selling book, My Life in Full: Work, Family and Our Future, a memoir that offers insight and a call-to-action from one of the world’s most-admired business leaders on how our society can blend work and family — and advance women — in the 21st century. She is a revered role model for women and immigrants and celebrated for her empowering messages on inclusivity. She currently resides in Greenwich, CT and is married to Raj Nooyi and has two daughters, Preetha and Tara.