Julie O'Brien

President of the Board

In second grade, Julie came home from school with yet another note saying she had spoken out of turn. In her eyes, she was rightly sticking up for someone who she felt was being treated unfairly. Fortunately, she discovered how to turn that advocacy mindset into an asset, which she has since leveraged to champion positive social change for women, youth and vulnerable communities throughout the world.

Today, she helps nonprofit and business leaders strategize and build programs, campaigns and movements to achieve notable social impact goals. As a philanthropic architect, Julie is actively involved in the launch of LookUp.live, a global nonprofit that discovers, incubates and scales youth-led solutions to digital addiction and tech/life balance. She's also the Founder of the Mother’s Day Fund, which provides scholarships and professional support to single moms looking to advance their careers.

From Kabul to California, Julie has drawn her inspiration from the very people she aims to serve. With her unwavering optimism and proven ability to mobilize people across sectors, she has advanced game-changing programs over the last decade. She built partnerships to help GE Healthcare expand its youth training and employment program into Africa. She untapped multimillion-dollar funding sources to help Grassroot Soccer protect adolescent girls from gender-based violence. She facilitated partnerships for KnackApp, a smart gaming company, to give thousands of underprivileged youth in developing countries a radically different way to discover their talents and skills. And she even helped her then 15-year old son launch Play on For Africa, a nonprofit that used Ultimate Frisbee to promote team spirit and gender equality to teens in Malawi.

Prior to joining the social sector, Julie led Dunkin’s coffee and beverage business during which time her award-winning team drove category growth from $700 million to $1.2 billion. She also pioneered the company’s foray into sustainable coffee through which she became a global voice, convener, and advocate for shared value initiatives. Additionally, Julie has served on the Executive Leadership teams of two global health nonprofits, spanned a decade providing strategic counsel to Afghanistan’s Ministry of Health, and was a distinguished lecturer at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. She is a graduate of the University of San Diego and Harvard Kennedy School, and currently serves of the Board of the Concord Carlisle Community Chest and The Coffee Trust.