Founder, Georgetown Business for Impact

Bill Novelli is the founder of Business for Impact at Georgetown McDonough and oversees the initiative. Also serving as a professor of the practice in the MBA program at Georgetown McDonough, Novelli teaches the following courses: Corporate Social Responsibility, Principled Leadership for Business and Society, and Leadership and Management of Nonprofit Organizations.

Previously, he was CEO of AARP, a membership organization of 40 million people ages 50 and older. Prior to AARP, Novelli was founder and president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, executive vice president of CARE, the international relief and development organization and co-founder and president of Porter Novelli, now one of the world’s largest public relations firms. Novelli began his career at Unilever, where he was an account supervisor at a New York advertising agency and later served as director of Advertising and Creative Services at the Peace Corps.

Presently, Novelli serves on several boards including Association of American Medical Colleges, American Cancer Society, Bipartisan Policy Center Advocacy Network, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, Center of Mental Health Pathways and Support for Self-Directed Care (COMPASS), and KaBOOM!. 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 that produced the following reports: The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, and Dying in America: Improving Quality and Honoring Individual Preferences Near the End of Life. Bill is the co-chair of the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care, a national alliance dedicated to reforming advanced illness/end of life care in the United States.

He received a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, and pursued doctoral studies at New York University. He taught marketing management for 10 years in the MBA program and also taught health communications at the University of Maryland.

Executive Director, Georgetown Business for Impact

Leslie is an author, educator, social change expert and Executive Director of Business for Impact at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. Business for Impact is founded on the belief is that companies can be a powerful force for good in the world, and delivers world-class education, student experience, and cross-sector collaborations for people, planet and profit.

Leslie’s latest book is How Change Happens: Why Some Movements Succeed While Others Don’t, noted in The New York Review of Books as a blueprint for groups inspired to take action on today’s major causes. Leslie also co-authored the bestselling Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits – recognized by The Economist on its Best Books of the Year list – and Do More than Give. She teaches corporate social responsibility in Georgetown’s MBA program and nonprofit leadership on LinkedIn Learning.

Leslie previously was managing director at Ashoka, the global venture fund for social entrepreneurs, and co-founded a national nonprofit social enterprise in her 20s. Leslie has contributed to Fortune, Forbes, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, and Stanford Social Innovation Review, and has appeared on programs such as ABC, FOX, NPR and PBS. She has volunteered on SEED Foundation and Kiva’s boards and with Crossroads Africa.

Chairman, Portion Balance Coalition

Hank is a senior director of the Leadership Solutions for Health and Prosperity program at Business for Impact and chair of the Portion Balance Coalition.

He is a regular contributor to Forbes on food industry matters pertaining to consumer health and well-being. The Leadership Solutions Program brings together and assists business, public health, regulatory and nonprofit leaders to arrive at practical solutions to health, nutrition and other pressing problems.

For over three decades, Hank was an executive at some of the world’s largest food and beverage companies, including President of Cadbury-Schweppes’ Sunkist Soft Drinks, Inc., Vice President of Marketing for Canada Dry, Director of Marketing for Coca-Cola USA, and Brand Manager for Anheuser-Busch and General Mills. He has served as Chief Executive Officer for several ingredient companies and, in 2000, was identified as a “Top 10 Innovator” in the Nutritional Foods industry. Most recently, Hank was senior fellow and director of the Food Policy Center at Hudson Institute.

Hank’s perspectives have been shared in numerous publications, including the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the Washington Post, The Economist, and TIME magazine, as well as in major broadcast media, such as CNN, NPR, the BBC, Good Morning America, CNBC, and the major television networks. Mr. Cardello is the author of the book Stuffed: An Insider’s Look at Who’s (Really) Making America Fat and the landmark report Better-for-you Foods: It’s Just Good Business. He has moderated expert panels at the White House, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Partnership for a Healthier America among others.

Hank holds a B.S. degree Magna Cum Laude in materials science and metallurgical engineering from Lehigh University, and an MBA in marketing from the Wharton Graduate School, University of Pennsylvania.

Senior Partner, Portion Balance Coalition

Diane Ty is senior partner of the Portion Balance Coalition at Business for Impact. Ty has expertise in marketing and business strategy and a long history of product, service, and program innovation in the nonprofit, corporate, and public sectors. Also, she serves as senior advisor to Service Year Alliance and consults to other nonprofits and startups.

Previously, Ty was senior vice president of strategic market development at AARP, where she was the architect of AARP’s under age 50 initiative called LifeTuner.org, a 2010 winner of an IDEA award (Gold-level) in the design strategy category by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), which recognizes annually the best product innovations around the globe.

Ty lead the Save the Children’s Millennial-focused work while serving as managing director of the United States programs division. In this role, she developed the Effie-winner and Emmy-nominated Ad Council campaign, “Do Good: Mentor A Child.” Prior to her nonprofit work, Ty worked for over 10 years as a marketing executive with the American Express Company in NYC. She started her career at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, where she organized and led U.S. investment delegations to developing countries.

Ty earned a B.A. from Duke University, an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and a M.A. from the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. She is married and has three children.

Executive in Residence, Portion Balance Coalition

Jeanne is an executive in residence at Business for Impact. Formerly an Institutional Affairs Director for Ferrero U.S.A., Inc., Jeanne now serves as a consultant for the company, with a focus on sustainability and toy regulations.

Jeanne joined Ferrero in 1993, where she worked in Bruxelles and Luxembourg, the international HQ for the Ferrero Group, until being repatriated in 2011. While in Europe, she served in various marketing and strategic planning capacities, gaining unique insights into global marketing and communications as well as brand re-engineering and strategic planning. Upon return to the U.S., she added government relations, public policy, and CPG safety and regulations—in particular toys–to her eclectic resume.

Jeanne spent the first half of her career in advertising account management, working at Grey Advertising and Ogilvy & Mather, both in New York City, on a variety of CPG categories: health and beauty aid products (Calgon, Aqua Fresh Toothpaste), soft drinks (Canada Dry), confectionery (Hershey), and coffee (Maxwell House).

Jeanne graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a B.A. in American Studies and Communication Arts. A new resident of Sarasota, Florida, she aspires to become an avid golfer and also enjoys sailing, volunteering, and travelling.

Executive in Residence, Portion Balance Coalition

Dawn Sweeney is an executive in residence for the Portion Balance Coalition at Business for Impact. After twelve years of service, she retired in December of 2019 as the President & CEO of the National Restaurant Association, the Washington, D.C.-based trade association for the nation’s $863 billion restaurant and foodservice industry. In this role, she was responsible for advancing and protecting the nation’s one million restaurants and its fifteen million employees. Long recognized as a leading voice in advocacy and revenue development, she has been named “Trade Association CEO of the Year” by two different national organizations and recognized by Washingtonian Magazine as one of the most powerful women in Washington for each of the past five years.

Dawn serves on the boards of SITE Centers Corp. (NYSE: SITC), where she serves on the Audit and Compensation Committees; Save the Children, where she serves on the Audit and Executive Committees and previously chaired the Nominations & Governance Committee; MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital, where she serves on the Quality and Safety Committee; and on the Board of Advisors for the Hart School of Hospitality at James Madison University.

She earned a Bachelor of Science in Government from Colby College and an MBA in Marketing from The George Washington University. She was selected to participate in the inaugural class of the Harvard Business School’s “Women on Boards: Succeeding as a Corporate Director” program in 2016 and has lectured at the Harvard Business School, Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, and Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law.