Our People

Biography

Jane Wales is Vice President, Philanthropy and Society, of the Aspen Institute and Director of the Institute’s Program on Philanthropy and Social Innovation. She is the Founder and CEO of the Global Philanthropy Forum, President and CEO of the World Affairs Council and host of the nationally-syndicated National Public Radio interview show "It's Your World”. Since July 2007, Wales has also served as Acting CEO of The Elders, chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and founded by Nelson Mandela. In April 2008, Jane began work as the Chair of the Poverty Alleviation Track for the Clinton Global Initiative.

Previously, Wales served in the Clinton Administration as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director of the National Security Council. She simultaneously served as Associate Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where her office was responsible both for advancing sustainable economic development, through science and technology cooperation, and for developing policy for securing advanced weapons materials in the former Soviet Union. In the Carter Administration, Wales served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and as Coordinator, Public Liaison, at the White House.

In the philanthropic sector, Jane Wales chaired the international security programs at the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the W. Alton Jones Foundation, and she directed the Project on World Security at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. She is the former National Executive Director of the Physicians for Social Responsibility, which shared in the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize during her tenure.