Gary White is an observer, an innovator, and a passionate problem-solver. He has created solutions that have empowered millions of people in need with access to safe water and sanitation.
Gary is the CEO and Co-founder of Water.org and WaterEquity, nonprofit organizations dedicated to empowering people living in poverty to gain access to safe water and sanitation. Gary developed Water.org’s WaterCredit solution, creating new financing options for poor populations to meet their water supply and sanitation needs. He also developed and leads WaterEquity, an impact investment manager dedicated to ending the global water crisis, with an exclusive focus on mobilizing private investments in water and sanitation throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Bringing more than 30 years of experience to work on solving the global water and sanitation crisis, Gary is a leading advisor in the water and sanitation space, counseling organizations such as the IKEA Foundation, Inditex, Reckitt, AB InBev, Amazon Web Services, the Water Resilience Coalition, and Bank of America on responses to the global water crisis. He is also a founding board member of the Millennium Water Alliance and Water Advocates.
Named to TIME magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people, Gary has been awarded the Forbes 400 Lifetime Achievement Award for Social Entrepreneurship, the Fulbright Prize for International Understanding, named to the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Water, and selected as Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur and a Skoll Foundation Social Entrepreneur.
Gary’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.