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About the Awards
The Social Innovator Awards celebrates leaders who are taking entrepreneurial approaches toward social change and thereby making our world a better, safer place.
This year’s honorees are business executives and non-profit leaders whose leadership offers a fresh and innovative approach to solving today’s most pressing global challenges. The awards night will also honor two young innovators in social responsibility. These young leaders symbolize the promise of the next generation to build on today’s social innovation.
The awards night is hosted by Americans for Informed Democracy (AID), in partnership with the Helene & Grant Wilson Center for Social Entrepreneurship at Pace University and GOOD magazine.
AID empowers young people in the United States to address global challenges such as poverty, disease, climate change, and conflict through awareness and action. We promote just and sustainable solutions at the campus, community and national level.
The Host Committee
Shelley Brindle
Senior Vice President, HBO
Stephanie Cochinos
Director, Alvarez & Marsal LLC
Justin Rockefeller, Co-Founder, Generation Engage
The Young Honoree Selection Committee
David Auerbach, International Expansion Associate, Endeavor
Jennifer Coreiro, Co-Founder and Executive Director, TakingIT Global
Steven Clemons, Executive V.P., New America Foundation
Lindsay Clinton, Editor, Microfinance Insights
Hope Lyons, Director, Grants Management, Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Lucas Welch, Founder, Soliya
Biographies:
Helene Gayle
Helene D. Gayle joined CARE USA as president in 2006. Born and raised in Buffalo, New York, she received her B.A. from Barnard College of Columbia University, her M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and her M.P.H. from Johns Hopkins University. After completing her residency in pediatric medicine at the Children's Hospital National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., she entered the Epidemic Intelligence Service, a training program in epidemiology at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, followed by a residency in preventive medicine, and then remained at CDC as a staff epidemiologist. At CDC, she studied problems of malnutrition in children in the United States and abroad, evaluating and implementing child survival programs in Africa and working on HIV/AIDS research, programs and policy. Dr. Gayle also served as the AIDS coordinator and chief of the HIV/AIDS division for the U.S. Agency for International Development; director for the National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention, CDC; director of CDC's Washington office; and health consultant to international agencies including the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank and UNAIDS. Prior to her current position, she was the director of the HIV, TB and reproductive health program for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, responsible for research, program and policies related to HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, reproductive health issues and tuberculosis.Dr. Gayle has published numerous articles on public health, especially related to HIV/AIDS, and has received many awards for her scientific and public health contributions. She attained the rank of rear admiral (assistant surgeon general) in the U.S. Public Health Service. She is also on the boards of the Institute of Medicine and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Bill Drayton
Bill Drayton is a social entrepreneur. As a student, he was active in civil rights and founded a number of organizations ranging from Yale Legislative Services to Harvard’s Ashoka Table, an interdisciplinary weekly forum in the social sciences. He graduated from Harvard with highest honors and went on to study at Balliol College in Oxford University, where he attained his master’s degree with First Class Honors.In 1970, he graduated from Yale Law School and began his career at McKinsey and Company in New York. From 1977 to 1981, Mr. Drayton served as Assistant Administrator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency where he launched emissions trading (the basis of Kyoto) among other reforms.
After his term at the EPA ended in 1981, he returned to McKinsey half-time and launched both Ashoka and Save EPA and its successor, Environmental Safety. With the support that he received unexpectedly when elected a MacArthur Fellow at the end of 1984, he was able to devote himself fully to Ashoka.
Mr. Drayton is currently the Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public. He is also chair of Youth Venture, Community Greens, and Get America Working! Mr. Drayton has won numerous awards and honors throughout his career, including, most recently in 2005, being selected as one of America’s Best Leaders by US News & World Report and Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership. In 2006, he was recognized as being one of Harvard University’s 100 “Most Influential Alumni.”
Judith McHale
Judith McHale is the Managing Partner of the GEF/Africa Growth Fund, a private equity investment fund focused on making investments in the consumer goods and services sector in Africa.
Prior to launching the fund, Ms. McHale served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Discovery Communications. In that role, McHale was responsible for the overall strategic direction, business development and operations of all Discovery resources and properties in the United States and around the world. Under her leadership, Discovery Communications grew from its core property, the Discovery Channel, first launched in 1985, to become the leading global real-world media and entertainment company. Discovery Communications now operates in 170 countries and territories reaching 1.4 billion total subscribers.
McHale led Discovery’s development in television, advanced media, education, online and retail services. Her leadership in expanding Discovery’s television services included the acquisitions of TLC in 1991, Travel Channel in 1997 and the launches of Animal Planet in 1996 and the Discovery Health Channel in 1999. She developed strategic partnerships around the world including Discovery’s global alliance with the BBC. McHale also expanded Discovery’s retail services by acquiring The Nature Company stores in 1996, creating a nationwide chain of more than 100 Discovery Channel Stores. Under McHale’s leadership, Discovery enhanced its strategic position in the education business by forming Discovery Education in 2004. In 2006, Discovery launched COSMEO, a revolutionary online homework help service that harnesses the power of broadband and media to help kids achieve academic breakthroughs. During her tenure, annual revenues of the company increased ten-fold from $300 million to over $3 Billion.
McHale has been acknowledged as a leader in creating innovative solutions to help employees manage the challenges they face in balancing the demands of work and their personal lives. In 1999, she created the company’s work/life initiative designed to provide better opportunities to strike that balance. Due to such innovative approaches, Discovery Communications was selected as one of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers by Working Mother magazine for seven consecutive years. In 2004, the magazine named McHale “National Family Champion” for her leadership in building a family friendly workplace. Discovery has been selected by Fortune, Health and Washingtonian magazines as a great place to work.
Before joining Discovery in 1987 as its General Counsel, McHale served as General Counsel for MTV Networks, where she was responsible for legal affairs for MTV, Nickelodeon and VH 1. McHale began her career as an attorney at the New York law firm of Battle, Fowler. McHale graduated from Fordham Law School and earned her undergraduate degree in politics from the University of Nottingham in England.
McHale is a member of the Boards of Directors of Polo/Ralph Lauren where she sits on the Audit Committee, and, Host Hotels and Resorts where she is a member of the Compensation Committee and is Chair of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee. McHale was previously a member of the Boards of Potomac Power and Electric Company (PEPCO) and John Hancock Life Insurance Company. In 1998 McHale was appointed by Governor Parris Glendenning to a four year term as a member of the Maryland State Board of Education.