NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Gary White is the CEO and co-founder of Water.org, a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people in the developing world to gain access to safe water and sanitation. (Water.org is the resulting organization of the July 2009 merger between WaterPartners, co-founded by White in 1990, and H2O Africa, co-founded by actor Matt Damon). White developed Water.org’s WaterCredit Initiative, creating new financing options for poor populations to meet their water supply and sanitation needs. He also developed and now leads WaterEquity, an innovation of Water.org focused on raising and deploying social impact investment capital.

Over the past 25 years, White’s entrepreneurial vision has driven innovations in the way water and sanitation projects are delivered and financed, innovations that now serve as a model in the sector.

White is a leading advisor in the water and sanitation space, counseling organizations such as the Skoll Foundation, MasterCard Foundation, PepsiCo Foundation, IKEA Foundation, and the Caterpillar Foundation on responses to the global water crisis. White is a founding board member of the Millennium Water Alliance and Water Advocates.

White was selected as a Skoll Foundation Social Entrepreneur in 2009 and a Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur in 2012. In 2011, he was named to the TIME 100 list of the world’s most influential people. In 2014, he was named to the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Water.

White’s educational credentials include three degrees in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Missouri University of Science & Technology.