Erin Ganju

Erin Ganju is a Managing Director at Echidna Giving, one of the largest private funders in girls’ education in lower-income countries where girls are most disadvantaged.

Prior to her role at Echidna Giving, Erin turned a bold idea for advancing literacy and gender equality into an international NGO: Room to Read. Erin Ganju is the Co-founder, former CEO, and currently remains an Emeritus Board Member of Room to Read, an organization that has impacted over 15 million children in 16 countries. From the early start-up days of Room to Read, Erin was instrumental in the design and implementation of the organization’s scalable, replicable model.

Erin 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, utilizing Room to Read as an organizational case study.

Under her leadership, Room to Read was recognized with multiple prestigious awards, including the U.S. Library of Congress Literacy Award 2014, UNESCO 2011 Confucius Prize for Literacy and Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. In addition, Erin 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.

Before co-founding Room to Read, Erin worked at Goldman Sachs & Co, Unilever and several technology start-ups. She has spent extensive time working and living in Asia, where she saw firsthand the need to enhance educational systems. Erin holds a combined bachelor’s and master’s degree in international relations and economics from The Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C. Throughout her career, Erin brings a deep commitment to data, transparency, scaling impact and operational excellence.