William Novelli (Board Chair)
Professor, McDonough School of Business
Georgetown University
Washington, DC
William D. Novelli, Founder, Global Social Enterprise Initiative and Distinguished Professor of the Practice, Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business
As a professor in the Master of Business Administration (MBA) program at Georgetown McDonough, Bill teaches Corporate Social Responsibility, Principled Leadership for Business and Society, and Leadership and Management of Nonprofit Organizations.
He is the founder of the Global Social Enterprise Initiative at McDonough and oversees the program. Bill is also the co-chair of the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care, a national alliance dedicated to reforming advanced illness and end-of-life care in the United States.
He was previously chief executive officer of AARP, a membership organization of 40 million people age 50 and older. Prior to AARP, Bill was founder and president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, executive vice present of CARE, the international relief and development organization and co-founder and president of Porter Novelli, one of the world’s largest public relations firms.
Bill began his career at Unilever, became an account supervisor at a New York advertising agency and later served as director of advertising and creative services at the Peace Corps.
Presently, Bill is on the boards of the American Cancer Society, the Bipartisan Policy Center Advocacy Network, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the Center of Mental Health Pathways and Support for Self-Directed Care (COMPASS), KaBoom!, and Strategic Partnerships.
In addition, he co-chairs the Care Culture and Decision-Making Innovation Collaborative of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) and previously served on NAM committees which produced reports on The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health; and Dying in America: Improving Quality and Honoring Individual Preferences Near the End of Life.
Bill received a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. from Penn’s Annenberg School for Communication and pursued doctoral studies at New York University. He taught marketing management for ten years at the University of Maryland’s MBA program and also taught health communications there.