Sudha Murty was born in 1950 in Shiggaon, Haveri District in North Karnataka. She completed her engineering from BVB College of Engineering, obtained 1^st rank across all branches and received a gold medal from the Institute of Engineers. She did her ME from Indian Institute of Science with distinction and started her career as an engineer with TELCO (now Tata Motors). Today, she is the chairperson of Infosys Foundation and ... READ MORE has handled 16 national disasters in the last 24 years. She studied in a Kannada-medium school till the 10^th standard and fell in love with the language. Her strong ties to the language and its people led her to establish more than 60,000 libraries in Karnataka. She also strongly believes in creating awareness for social causes and has passionately traveled the world for this purpose including universities and gatherings in USA, Columbia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, New Zealand, Australia, England, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Tibet, and Singapore. A prolific writer in English and Kannada, her books have been translated into all major Indian languages and have sold over 30 lakh copies around the country. She is a columnist for English and Kannada dailies with 30 books and more than 200 titles to her credit – including novels, non-fiction, children’s books, travelogues, technical books, and memoirs. She has also received seven honorary doctorates. Some of her awards include the R.K. Narayan Award for Literature, the Padma Shri in 2006, the Attimabbe Award from the government of Karnataka for excellence in Kannada literature in 2011 and the Lifetime Achievement by Crossword Book Awards in 2018. She lives by the belief that “Generosity of a few is hope for millions”.

As president of Susan Spencer Consulting (​susanspencerconsulting.com​), Spencer draws on her deep experience in content and communications to help companies, brands, and nonprofits connect authentically with American women. Her current clients include Engage, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit initiative that promotes issues around women’s economic security. In her prior role, Spencer was the editor-in-chief of ​Woman’s Day​ ... READ MORE and womansday.com, owned by Hearst. During her eight-year tenure, she revitalized the magazine by connecting deeply with its audience of 15+ million and bringing it back to its roots as an inspirational source of information for American women. The magazine was the top-selling monthly on U.S. newsstands from 2016-2020. Prior to Hearst, Spencer was executive editor of ​All You​ magazine, published by Time Inc., and held senior editorial positions at ​Child and Diversion magazines. She also worked for Time Inc. Strategic Communications, producing branded content for corporate clients including Pfizer, Vera Bradley, and The Humane Society of the United States. As a volunteer, Spencer sits on the board of WomenHeart, a national nonprofit coalition of women living with heart disease in Washington, DC; and serves on two board committees: the Communications & Marketing Coordinating Committee of the American Heart Association and the Marketing Committee of Safe Horizon, the nation’s largest nonprofit victim services organization. Closer to home, she is the secretary of the Board of Trustees at Beacon UU Congregation in Summit, NJ, and a proud monthly volunteer at St. Joseph’s Food Pantry. Spencer graduated from Connecticut College with a B.A. degree in French and European History. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and two daughters.

Carrie Morgridge serves as the Vice President and Chief Disruptor of The Morgridge Family Foundation. The mission of the Foundation is to invest in leaders and organizations that are reimagining solutions to some of today’s greatest challenges. Carrie is the award-winning author of Every Gift Matters – How Your Passion CanChange the World.Her second book, ... READ MORE The Spirit of the Trail, was released in May 2018 and her third book, Courage Money, will be published in 2021.
Carrie and her husband John are proud founders of the Student Support Foundation, a national organization that inspires youth philanthropy, as well as mindSpark Learning, an organization focused on empowering educators to tackle the most challenging conditions in their schools through Design Thinking and other strategies.
Carrie is an internationally sought-after speaker at education advocacy forums, poverty alleviation conferences, and more. Recent appearances include two TED Talks and serving as a panel member for MIT Solve events. She serves on the Advisory Board at sparks&honey, a cultural consultancy, and frequently presents on The Future of Giving, a collaborative report between sparks&honey and MFF.
Carrie and John divide their time between Montana, Colorado and Florida. As new grandparents, they especially enjoy visiting their two adult children and their families in Denver. In their spare time, Carrie and John are avid athletes. In fact, they mountain biked across the country on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route covering 2,774 miles from Canada to Mexico in 46 days. Carrie has completed ten Ironman competitions to date and never says no to a game of tennis.

Kris Putnam-Walkerly is a trusted advisor to the world’s leading philanthropists. For over 20 years, ultra-high new worth donors, foundations, Fortune 500 companies, celebrity activists and wealth advisors have sought her advice to As a philanthropy advisor, speaker, and award-winning author, she’s helped hundreds of philanthropists strategically allocate over ... READ MORE half a billion dollars in grants and gifts. Kris’s clients include the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, J.M. Smucker Company, Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, Heising-Simons Foundation, Annie E. Casey Foundation, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Walton Family Foundations, Fujitsu, Blue Shield of California, and Avery Dennison Foundation, among many others.
A thought leader in transformational giving®, Kris has been named one of America’s Top 20 Philanthropy Speakers for the past three years. She is the author of Delusional Altruism: Why Philanthropists Fail To Achieve Change and What They Can Do To Transform Giving *Wiley, 2020) and Confident Giving: Sage Advice for Funders; a Forbes.com contributor on philanthropy; a global philanthropy content partner to Alliance Magazine; and the US philanthropy expert to the leading Dutch philanthropy media outlet De Dikke Blauwe.
Kris is also a frequent contributor in publications of national philanthropy organizations including the National Center for Family Philanthropy, Exponent Philanthropy, PEAK Grantmaking, and GrantCraft. She has provided expert commentary about philanthropy to the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Washington Post, Entrepreneur, NPR’s Marketplace Morning Report, Philanthropy News Digest, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Financial Advisor Magazine, Wealth Management, and more.
In 2017 Kris was inducted into the Million Dollar Consulting® Hall of Fame, one of only 75 consultants worldwide who are recognized for outstanding accomplishments and are regarded by their peers as global leaders in consulting. She helped launch the National Network of Consultants to Grantmakers and has served on the boards of the Community Foundation of Lorain County (OH) and the Horizons Foundation.
Prior to forming Putnam Consulting Group, Inc., Kris was a grantmaker at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and an evaluator at Stanford University School of Medicine. She holds a master’s degree in social work from San Francisco State University and a bachelor’s degree from Indiana University. She and her husband have five children and reside near Cleveland, Ohio. Learn more at putnam-consulting.com.