Jessica Hansen

Jessica Hansen is Executive Director of Alliance for Smiles, an international medical nonprofit that provides free surgeries for children with cleft lip and palate, trains local healthcare providers, and builds Treatment Centers to equip communities to sustainably care for these patients.

She recently served as Social Impact Manager at two tech companies, Lyft and Twilio. Prior to that, she served as Global Engagement & Education Manager at the microfinance organization Kiva for six years, where she launched Kiva U, an international award winning program, which was featured in Chelsea Clinton’s book “It’s Your World: Get Informed, Get Inspired & Get Going!

Jessica moved to San Francisco from rural Kenya where she worked with local teams through Nuru International to raise literacy levels in rural primary schools. She got her start working with refugees at organizations including UNHCR, the International Rescue Committee/Women’s Refugee Commission, the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, Mercy Corps, and Doctors Without Borders.

Jessica’s TEDx Talk is on “The Power of ‘We’ & How Technology Connects Us for Good”, and she has spoken at over 150 conferences and events across six continents, including guest lecturing at the Stanford d.school, as part of the Clinton Global Initiative University Conference, the Harvard Social Enterprise Conference and Summit, the United Nations Millennium Conference, the Women’s Economic Empowerment Conference, and more.

Jessica is also a Rotarian, a Senior Strategist at the Impact Travel Alliance, Vice President of the Board of Directors at the West African Volunteer Organization, and host of The HumanKind Podcast. Her fieldwork has been primarily in East and Central Africa and Southeast Asia. She has a BA in International Politics from the University of Central Oklahoma/University of Leicester and an MSW from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia