by 
Former CEO | Union of Concerned Scientists
Moderator | The Changing Philanthropic Landscape
Johanna Chao Kreilick has over twenty years of experience launching, leading, and transforming organizations and initiatives that promote the public good and a healthy planet. She is a trained mediator and facilitator and serves on numerous nonprofit boards.
Most recently, Kreilick served as the president and CEO of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). Under her leadership, UCS delivered crucial science and equity-informed research and advocacy that resulted in unprecedented policy, litigation, and regulatory wins at the global, national, state, and local level on climate, clean energy, clean transportation, food justice, regenerative agriculture, democracy, and nuclear security.
For over two decades, Kreilick has set and steered collaborative strategy for global operational philanthropies, research centers, and nonprofit organizations, working across the globe in every region and across the United States.
Kreilick builds teams and strategies that engage change agents and decision makers across sectors, disciplines, and borders to protect and improve planetary health and human wellbeing.
She started as a community organizer advocating alongside smallholder farmers, poultry and garment workers, and street vendors from Kansas to Kenya.
She earned a BA with distinction in Anthropology from Stanford University and an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where she was named a Lucius N. Littauer Fellow.
