Advisory Board

Barbara Bush ('04, Yale College is an Executive-in-Residence at Schmidt Futures, a venture facility and foundation for public benefit focused on technology & society, shared prosperity, and scientific benefit. In this role, she supports racial justice, global health, and COVID-19 investments and programs, along with some of the world’s most talented problem solvers via the International Strategy Forum, Associate Product Manager program, and Entrepreneur-in-Residence program. 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 over 1,000 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. Before joining Global Health Corps’ founding team, Bush worked in educational programming at the Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, where she supported design-thinking and problem-solving programs for high school students and faculty across the US. She has worked with Red Cross Children’s Hospital in South Africa and UNICEF in Botswana. Bush is a member of the board of directors for 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, and a fellow of the Echoing Green Foundation.  In 2011, Bush 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, Bush released the number one NYTimes best seller Sisters First, a  memoir she co-authored with her twin. In November 2019, Bush and her sister, Hager, released the children’s version of Sisters First, also a number one NYTimes best seller. 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 oversees the healthcare investments in the Heirs Holdings’ portfolio. She holds a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery degree from the University of Benin. Her experience as a medical doctor includes medicine, surgery, pediatrics, obstetrics, gynecology and emergency medicine. In Nigeria, Dr. Elumelu has worked with the Lagos University Teaching Hospital and in the UK, with Grantham and District Hospital, Grantham. In January 2018, Dr. Elumelu was appointed as the Champion for Immunization in Africa by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI).

Julie ('93, Yale College) 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, TN in 2008. Julie devotes a substantial amount of time to non-profit board service, most notably The Frist Foundation, the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, the Board of Dean’s Advisors at Harvard Business School and the Yale Institute for Global Health. Through this work, she has developed a passion for addressing 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 the Class of 1997 which set fundraising records for both the 15th and 20th Reunions at Harvard Business School. Julie graduated from Yale University 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, TN with her husband, Tommy Frist III, and their three children.

Dr. Jeffrey P. Koplan ('66, Yale College) is an internationally renowned leader in the fields of public health and global health. In 2006, he founded the Emory Global Health Institute (EGHI) and served as its Director until 2013. As Emory’s Vice President for Global Health, he continues to be actively involved in EGHI programs, which provide multidisciplinary global health research, training, and partnership opportunities to Emory faculty and students. 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. Throughout his career, he has worked on many major public health issues in the U.S. and abroad including infectious diseases such as smallpox, SARS, pandemic influenza, and HIV/AIDS. Dr. Koplan has also worked on chronic diseases resulting from tobacco use and obesity and environmental health issues such as the Bhopal chemical disaster. 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 was elected to the National Academy of Medicine. He has written more than 240 scientific papers on numerous public health issues and has co-authored two books on childhood obesity. He has served on numerous advisory groups and consultancies in the U.S. and overseas. He is a trustee of the China Medical Board and the CDC Foundation Board. He is a former trustee of Yale University. Dr. Koplan has received numerous awards throughout his career including the China Friendship Award, the highest honor that the Chinese government bestows on foreign nationals.

Tsitsi Masiyiwa is an African philanthropist and social entrepreneur. She is the Executive Chair and Co-Founder of Delta Philanthropies and Higherlife Foundation, whose primary goal is to invest in human capital development to build thriving individuals, communities, and sustainable livelihoods. As a result of her work and experience establishing and growing Higherlife Foundation over the last twenty-five years, she is an advisor and thought partner to universities, national leaders, and social entrepreneurs. Tsitsi also serves on the boards of various international NGOs working in education, global health, gender and youth empowerment.

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.