Melissa Kilby is the Co-Executive Director of Girl Up, a leadership development program working to achieve gender equality for all girls everywhere. Melissa co-leads this initiative, hosted at the UN Foundation, that inspires, convenes, trains and connects girls globally, helping to position them as leaders and changemakers.

Since joining in September 2011, Melissa has helped Girl Up raise over $15 million dollars to support a robust girl’s leadership program and the work of Girl Up’s United Nations partners. Melissa works with corporations such as The Walt Disney Corporation, Caterpillar, Johnson&Johnson, Oath, and others, as well as manages the grant-making and investments to UN agencies including UNICEF, UNHCR, UNFPA, and UN Women.

She has traveled to Guatemala, Ethiopia, Malawi, and India to meet girls directly benefiting from the fundraising efforts of Girl Up supporters. Under Melissa’s leadership, Girl Up has grown into a global gender equality movement of more than 700,000 supporters and impacted the lives of more than 65,000 girls around the world.

I found this conversation to be enlightening, I was really curious about the concept of global female equality and had a lot of questions about cultural differences. Melissa helped me find new perspectives and had a lot of stories to share

So without further ado, Melissa Kilby

Resoruces:

https://unfoundation.org/who-we-are/our-people/melissa-kilby/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-hillebrenner-kilby-a439426/

https://www.ted.com/talks/melissa_kilby_teenage_girls_will_change_the_world_4_ways_they_are_leading_the_way

https://girlup.org/about