Professional Bio for New President and CEO, Mary Beth Powers
Mary Beth Powers joins CMMB on September 1st as President and CEO, bringing a depth of experience in strategic planning, support to field programs, fundraising and team leadership in the international development field.
Most recently, Mary Beth has been the Vice President of Programs at Dalio Philanthropies, a private family foundation that has given $1 billion to causes. In this role, she led the grant making team who manage support to organizations addressing health and wellness, ocean discovery, financial inclusion and community building.
Mary Beth was previously the CEO of SeriousFun Children’s Network, a network of camps founded by Paul Newman to provide opportunities for children with life-limiting illnesses to test their limits and build resilience. In addition to building strong interconnectedness among the member camps, she was able to bring new corporate partners to the mission in support of the children and their families.
Prior to 2014, Mary Beth spent the majority of her career supporting maternal and child programs and initiatives in more than 25 countries around the world. In experience linked to the CMMB mission, she was the Chief of the Newborn & Child Survival Campaign, a program and policy initiative of Save the Children. While at Save the Children, she helped launch and was the founding chair of the Frontline Health Workers Coalition which continues to advocate for support of Frontline Health Workers who serve to protect basic health needs around the world.
Mary Beth began her career with Catholic Relief Services in Pakistan and after a degree in public health, she joined Save the Children providing program support for health projects. After a position where she led health programs at CARE, Mary Beth returned to Save the Children to build their maternal child health work and helped design and launch the Gates-funded Saving Newborn Lives project.
She has lived and worked in Egypt, Pakistan and Thailand and studied at the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica between her undergraduate degree at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service and her graduate work in public health at the University of Michigan.