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Our Founder
 Gretchen Steidle Wallace’s
inspiration for her work with women in developing countries first stirred
in her as a child when her military family was transferred to the
Philippines, where she discovered the difficulties of poverty. She
graduated in 1996 with BA in foreign affairs from the University of
Virginia, where she attended as a Jefferson Scholar. From 1996-1999 she
worked in international project finance for PMD International, Inc. a
boutique investment banking firm specializing in infrastructure
development in poor countries. She returned for her MBA at the Tuck
School of Business at Dartmouth College, where she helped found what is
now
Tuck’s Allwin Initiative for Corporate Citizenship, an endeavor to instill
in business leaders a sense of corporate responsibility, service, business
ethics and knowledge of social enterprise. After Tuck, she joined Ashoka:
Innovators for the Public, an international non-profit organization
advancing the profession of social entrepreneurship. She was responsible
for leading the early stage development of an incubator for social
entrepreneurs and was invited to direct Ashoka’s sister organization,
Youth Venture, a national non-profit organization that helps young people
create and lead their own social ventures. In 2003 she left Ashoka
and Youth Venture to start a social venture of her own.
In 2004 Gretchen led a
team to South Africa to study the impact of HIV/AIDS, the work of social
entrepreneurs combating the disease and the opportunity for creative
business investment in the epidemic. In the townships of South
Africa, Gretchen discovered how critical a role the lack of women’s sexual
and economic rights played in the continued spread of HIV. In late
2004, inspired by her work in South Africa and her brother’s tenure in
Darfur as a military observer for the African Union, she incorporated
Global Grassroots. In 2005, she returned to Africa to launch Global
Grassroots’ initial work in the Darfur refugee camps of eastern Chad.
Gretchen is co-author of
her brother's memoirs,
The Devil Came on Horseback, the
story of former Marine Captain Brian Steidle, an American witness to the
genocide in Darfur, Sudan. The book, published by Public Affairs,
will be available in bookstores in March 2007. Gretchen is also a
producer of the documentary film,
The Devil Came on Horseback, a
Break Thru Films production in association with Global Grassroots and
Three Generations, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007.
She recently was honored by World Business Magazine and Shell as one of
the top International 35 Women Under 35. |
