FCC club lunch with John WOOD

Speaker: John WOOD
Former Microsoft Executive, Founder of Room to Read

Topic: Creating Room to Read: A Story of Hope in the Battle for Global Literacy

John WOOD will share the story of what happened when Room to Read began to grow beyond his wildest dreams, and discuss the rapid expansion of this award-winning non-profit organization he started after leaving the corporate world to pursue his passion. To date, Room to Read has opened over 1,600 schools and 15,000 libraries and distributed over 12 million books to millions of children in various countries.

His new book, ” CREATING ROOM TO READ: A Story of Hope in the Battle for Global Literacy ”, chronicles the journey to tackle the organization’s next steps – the challenges of balancing business expansion and integrity, raising funds in a difficult economy, and changing the organization’s mission in a quest to provide access to local language children’s books and quality education. John strives to deliver a dose of optimism and inspire action to transform the lives of millions of children through the lifelong gift of education, and aspires to effect positive change in the world.

John is a member of the Advisory Board of the Clinton Global Initiative, and has been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He also teaches at the graduate level at the Wagner School of Public Policy at NYU and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.