Erin Ganju

Erin Ganju is a social entrepreneur and managing director at Echidna Giving, one of the largest private funders in girls’ education in lower-income countries. She leads on managing their portfolio of global investments in adolescent programming and efforts to build a robust ecosystem among implementers, researchers, and other funders in the gender equality in education sector.

Previously, Ganju co-founded and served as the CEO of Room to Read, an organization for advancing literacy and gender equality that has impacted over 20 million children in 16 countries. Before Room to Read, she worked at Goldman Sachs & Co, Unilever, and several technology start-ups.

Ganju serves on the steering committee for the International Education Funders Group, which is a network of foundations investing in international education. She is also a board member for the Girls First Fund, Team4Tech, Luminos Fund, and Emeritus Board of Room to Read.

Ganju was selected as the World Economic Forum’s Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur (2014) and recognized as a Global Impact Featured Member for 2017 by the Young Presidents’ Organization. She co-authored Scaling Global Change: A Social Entrepreneur’s Guide to Surviving the Start-up Phase and Driving Impact. The book is a how-to guide for social entrepreneurs who have a vision to change the world and need a strong organizational foundation to do it.

Ganju holds a combined bachelor’s and master’s degree in international relations and economics from The Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C.

Last updated: 2021