John Wood (Room to Read)
| John Wood | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1964 Hartford, Connecticut, U.S |
| Organization | Room To Read |
| Notable work | Founder of Room To Read |
| Website | www |
John J. Wood (born January 29, 1964) is the Founder of Room to Read, a global non-profit organization focused on literacy and gender equality in education. He is the author of Creating Room to Read: A Story of Hope in the Battle for Global Literacy, Leaving Microsoft to Change the World: An Entrepreneur's Odyssey to Educate the World's Children and the children's book Zak the Yak with Books on His Back. He is a four-term member of the Clinton Global Initiative's Advisory Board and a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute. Wood was selected for the inaugural class of Young Global Leaders by the World Economic Forum and was awarded Microsoft's first "Alumni of the Year" award by Bill and Melinda Gates. Wood has served on the Board of Directors for Net Impact and One Acre Fund, and is currently an Advisory Board member of Global Citizen Year, New Story and Possible Health.
John Wood was born in January 1964, in Hartford, Connecticut, where he spent his early childhood. His family later settled in Athens, Pennsylvania, where he attended high school. He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Colorado, and a master's degree in business administration from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. He has received honorary PhD's from McGill University, the University of San Francisco, Westminster University, and Wofford College.{{ cn}}
From 1991-1999, Wood worked as an executive for Microsoft. His positions included Director of Marketing for Australia, Director of Marketing for the Asia-Pacific region and Director of Business Development for Greater China.
Wood took a vacation from his work at Microsoft in 1998 to trek through the Himalayas. While trekking, he met a "resource director" for the schools in the Annapurna Circuit of Nepal, with whom he visited a primary school that contained 450 children and only a handful of books—none age-appropriate. Upon seeing Wood's reaction to the lack of books, the school’s headmaster suggested, "Perhaps, sir, you will someday come back with books," which inspired Wood to solicit book donations from family and friends via email sent from an Internet cafe in Kathmandu.
...
Wikipedia