Wendy Kopp is CEO and Co-founder of Teach For All. After founding Teach For America, which she led for 24 years, she led the development of Teach For All to be responsive to the initiative of social entrepreneurs around the world who were determined to adapt this approach in their own countries.

Teach For All is a global network of independent organizations in more than 60 countries that are working to develop collective leadership to ensure that all children can fulfill their potential. Each network partner recruits and develops promising leaders to teach in their nations’ under-resourced schools and communities and, with this foundation, to work with others, inside and outside of education, towards a world where all children have the education, support, and opportunity to shape a better future. Teach For All’s global organization works to increase and accelerate the network’s impact.

Wendy is the youngest person and first woman to receive Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson Award (1993), the highest honor the school confers on its undergraduate alumni. In 1994 Time Magazine recognized her as one of the forty most promising leaders under 40; in 2006, U.S. News & World Report named her as one of America’s Best Leaders; and in 2008, Time Magazine recognized her as one of the World’s 100 Most Influential People. Wendy was the recipient of the 2021 WISE Prize for Education; she has also been recognized by Forbes 50 Over 50 (2025), and with the Forbes 400 Lifetime Achievement Award for Social Entrepreneurship (2014), the Presidential Citizens Medal (2008), the Spelman College National Community Service Award (2011), the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship (2008), The Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education Award (2006), the John F. Kennedy New Frontier Award (2004), the Clinton Center Award for Leadership and National Service (2003), the Schwab Foundation’s Outstanding Social Entrepreneur Award (2003), Aetna’s Voice of Conscience Award (1994), the Citizen Activist Award from the Gleitsman Foundation (1994), and the Jefferson Award for Public Service (1991).

She is the author of A Chance to Make History: What Works and What Doesn’t in Providing an Excellent Education for All (2011) and One Day, All Children: The Unlikely Triumph of Teach For America and What I Learned Along the Way (2000). She holds honorary doctorate degrees from University of Oklahoma (2014), Boston University (2013), Dartmouth College (2012), Harvard University (2012), Marquette University (2010), Washington University in St. Louis (2009), Georgetown University (2008), Mount Holyoke College (2007), Rhodes College (2007), Pace University (2004), Mercy College (2004), Smith College (2001), Princeton University (2000), Connecticut College (1995), and Drew University (1995).

Wendy holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University, where she participated in the undergraduate program of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Wendy resides in New York City with her husband Richard Barth and is the mom of four.