Alison Lingane has dedicated her career to enabling businesses to be a force for good. She started her career in community-based work, designing and leading micro-enterprise programs for urban youth. Inspired to gain skills to bring programs to scale that create real impact, she got her MBA and co-founded what is now the Global Social Venture Competition, the largest international business plan competition for double or triple-bottom-line businesses.
Prior to launching Project Equity, Alison held executive roles at mission-driven businesses that are designed to have a human impact at scale, including Benetech (where she built and launched their first product, a digital book service for individuals with visual or reading disabilities), Great Schools (the 6th largest parenting website, a nonprofit using information to drive school improvement), and InsideTrack (a venture-backed scaled services company that has delivered 1:1 coaching to millions of college students, resulting in increased college completion rates). She brings those scaling lessons back full circle to her work at Project Equity, turning businesses into community change agents through employee ownership.
A serial ‘social entrepreneur,’ Alison co-founded a thriving PreK-8th grade dual immersion school in Oakland (Escuela Bilingüe Internacional) that serves over 360 students. Alison has her B.A. from Harvard University and her MBA from the Haas School of Business. She has been selected as 2014 Echoing Green Fellow, a 2017-18 Aspen Institute Job Quality Fellow, a 2019 Ashoka Fellow, and a 2022-23 Rutgers Executive Fellow. She is also a recipient of the 2022 Heinz Award for the Economy.
