Meredith Parfet

Meredith is a passionate philanthropist and entrepreneur. She has served as a financial advisor for High Net Worth Families, as the Chief Operating Officer for a hedge fund and also as the Director of Marketing for two different social ventures in the financial services space. While earning her MBA from the Kellogg School of Management in 2007, Meredith was a leader in a groundbreaking partnership between Northwestern University and the Gates Foundation to develop low cost HIV diagnostics for developing countries. After extensive product development work and field research in East Africa, she transitioned to full time employment as a Global Product Manager for a leading HIV drug. As a part of her work in Africa and other developing countries she designed and implemented an award winning program that trained more than 3,000 doctors in advanced HIV/AIDS topics. She also founded a toy library at the Tshwaranang Orphan Center in Johannesburg, RSA. In 2012, after a move back to Boulder, Colorado, Meredith jettisoned her start up and marketing experience to a marketing consultancy she founded called Practika, where she works with mid sized companies to develop pragmatic, resonant marketing campaigns. She splits her time between Practika and Denali Venture Philanthropy. In addition to her MBA, Meredith holds a BA in Political Science from Northwestern University. She is a British American Project 2009, Fellow, nominated for and selected to participate in an annual international conference around sustainability and global resource limitations.