Shiza Shahid is a Pakistani-American entrepreneur, investor, and activist. She co-founded the Malala Fund with Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai and served as its founding CEO, then went on to co-found and co-lead Our Place, the cookware brand behind the viral Always Pan. She also founded NOW Ventures, an early-stage fund backing mission-driven founders. Her work braids together social impact, immigrant identity, and the everyday ritual of cooking.
Dr. Geetha Murali is the chief executive officer of Room to Read, the global literacy and girls' education nonprofit headquartered in San Francisco. The first non-founder CEO of the organization, she leads a team of roughly 1,200 staff across 29 countries and a network of more than 20,000 partners and volunteers. Under her watch, Room to Read's programs have reached over 60 million children. A PhD in South Asian politics with a master's in biostatistics, she frames her work through a personal lens: her mother was nearly a child bride, and her family's trajectory shifted in a single generation.