Wendy Kopp, the founder and CEO of Teach for America, is one of the most impressive social entrepreneurs I've ever met. Anyone who writes her college thesis about recruiting America's top young people to education—and then spends the next 22 years building an organization that now hires more college seniors than most any Fortune 500 company—gets my vote.
But I'm not here to tell you about Kopp. (She's had many profiles since I wrote about her in Fortune in 2006.) I want to tell you about someone who is a young version of the TFA founder: Barbara Bush. You remember Barbara as one of the twin daughters of President George W. Bush. Now 29, she has quietly moved beyond her Washington youth and has a global-health startup in the making.
Bush's creation is Global Health Corps. After graduating from Yale, young Barbara went to South Africa and worked in a children's hospital, where she got the bug to help lure young people into careers in global health. When she got home to the U.S. in 2008, her sister, Jenna, told her about two guys from Google (GOOG) whom she had met and had a passion and know-how in that field. Their first meeting was a weekend at Jenna's house in Baltimore. "We locked ourselves in her house for the weekend, and we wrote a business plan, which is not what I normally did when I was 25," Barbara says.
That was 2008. "Quit your job," both her dad and mom, Laura, told her, urging her to leave the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York City. (Barbara had once wanted to be an architect.) Ever since that day, Barbara has been working to mobilize recent college grads and young professionals to work for a year in a healthcare non-profit or government agency.
Global Health Corps is building quickly. More than 125 fellows have worked on health issues around the world, from Boston to Burundi. GHC fielded thousands of applications for 68 fellowships awarded in August. Like TFA, it's more difficult to get into this program than an Ivy League college. Bush's goal: 500 fellows a year.
Sure, Barbara Bush is privileged. And yes, she has extraordinary connections and access that aid her in building her startup. But this ambitious young member of the Bush dynasty could be taking it easy and enjoying the spoils. Instead, she is working creatively to improve the world and the lot of America's young people.
"I had no plans to be a social entrepreneur," she says. Sometimes the calling just happens.
Here's a clip of my interview with Barbara Bush at the recent Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit.
Fortune Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs 2011 is open for nominations and applications.
Each year, Fortune recognizes 10 female entrepreneurs who are outstanding game changers, groundbreakers, and innovators. We invite them as our special guests to the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit (this year, October 3-5 in Laguna Niguel, CA) and we share their success stories with our readers.
We're on the hunt for female founders of thriving U.S. or international companies with MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jun 30, 2011 11:08 AM ET
I recently got a call from Lauren Fleischer, a senior at the University of Pennsylvania and head of Wharton Women. I knew Wharton Women, having once given a talk about leadership and success to this student group. While I had never met Lauren, I was mightily impressed with her as she interviewed me for her research paper on that very topic -- leadership and success. In fact, I told her MORE
Patricia Sellers - May 16, 2011 1:13 PM ET
by Patricia Sellers
Monday's Postcard--detailing an experiment in which female undergrads revealed themselves to be practically allergic to $20 bills placed randomly in a classroom--drew a flood of comments and spirited debate about women and money.
Men, for the most part, said women do fear money. "Why the fear?" asked a Miami reader, Michael D. " "IMHO, it is learned behavior. Girls are bought things, boys are given opportunities to own them."
Other MORE
Patricia Sellers - Apr 19, 2011 12:24 PM ET
While visiting a friend's daughter at Georgetown University earlier this month, I got lured into meeting with a group of 15 undergrads. The session was great fun and illuminating. These were bright young women whose ambitions ranged, they told me, from cleaning up the global environmental to achieving world peace to building Fortune 500 companies.
Not one shrinking violets here.
The weekly convener of these students is Susan Wilson, CEO of The MORE
Patricia Sellers - Apr 18, 2011 11:39 AM ET
by Patricia Sellers
Few career falls are as swift and spectacular as Cathie Black's.
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Since her exit yesterday, Black had not talked to the press, except for "60 seconds in front of my apartment building last night," she said when she MORE
Patricia Sellers - Apr 8, 2011 1:18 PM ET
by Patricia Sellers
Did you hear that Lady Gaga was the magazine world's No. 1 hit-maker in 2010? So says the Audit Bureau of Circulations, which found that the provocative performer sold more magazine covers last year than any other celebrity.
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Patricia Sellers - Jan 5, 2011 11:42 AM ET
Last week, two former CEOs who once topped Fortune's Most Powerful Women list won hotly contested California primaries. Carly Fiorina, ex-Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) now battles Democrat Barbara Boxer for her U.S. Senate seat, while Meg Whitman, who built eBay (EBAY), faces off against Jerry Brown for a chance to rebuild the teetering Golden State. Fiorina's and Whitman's wins signify the Year of the Woman, as many say, but the rise of MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jun 17, 2010 10:48 AM ET
"Ultimately if you can put a wall up, if you can paint, if you can work with other people and, most important, if you find out what you are good at, that's the key."
-- British chef Jamie Oliver, in the New York Times Magazine, challenging the myth that a traditional education is the only way to be successful. Today Oliver's hyperactivity is his trademark but as a child he was MORE
Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Oct 12, 2009 7:01 PM ET
"No one's born being good at things. You become good at things through hard work. You're not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don't hit every note the first time you sing a song. You've got to practice."
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Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Sep 8, 2009 6:31 PM ET
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Pattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), "MySpace Cowboys," Martha Stewart ("I cannot be destroyed"), Ted Turner ("Gone with the Wind") and Oprah Winfrey ("Oprah Inc."). Since its launch in 1998, Pattie has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women" cover package.
A specialist at dissecting larger-than-life personalities, she has also profiled former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Morgan Stanley chairman John Mack, and countless CEOs.
Pattie co-chairs the annual Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business, philanthropy, government, academia, and the arts. She started at Fortune in 1984, covering the big brand companies.
In Pattie's blog, Postcards, she provides insight into the lives of super-achievers through commentary, career advice, and Guest Posts by CEOs and other leaders.
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