MEET THE FEATURED SPEAKER

Barbara Pierce Bush 

Co-founder and Board Chair, Global Health Corps 

Barbara Bush 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 and 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 theworld’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 nine 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 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, and a fellow of the Echoing Green Foundation. 

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 New York Times bestseller 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 New York Times bestseller followed by The Superpower Sisterhood in 2022.

Barbara graduated from Harvard Kennedy School with a Master's in Public Administration as a fellow with the Center for Public Leadership and Yale University with a BA in Humanities.