Guest Speaker: Nancy Lublin

Founder & CEO, Crisis Text Line

Nancy Lublin enjoys building things that matter.

At age 23, she turned a $5,000 inheritance into Dress for Success, a global entity that provides interview suits and career development training to women in need. Today, Dress for Success helps women reclaim their destinies in almost 150 cities in 20 countries.

In 2003, Lublin came to Do Something to rescue it from the ashes. The organization had lost its office space, was $250,000 in debt, and had just laid off 21 out of 22 people. Lublin moved everything online, transforming it into DoSomething.org, an organization that leverages technology like social media and texting to reach its audience. Today, DoSomething.org is one of the largest youth organizations in the world with more than 5.3 million members.

In 2013, while still CEO of DoSomething.org, Lublin turned her popular TED talk into her third company. She raised $4 million dollars, hired a team, and launched Crisis Text Line. It processed 1 million messages in its first six months and is heralded as a pioneer in big data for social good.

Lublin’s innovative approach to business, teens and technology has transcended the not-for-profit world, making her a sought-after expert and public speaker. She wrote a popular monthly column for Fast Company for two years and has taught graduate-level courses as an adjunct faculty at both Yale and NYU. She is the author of 4 books and sits on the board of McGraw Hill Education.

Nancy was named one of Fortune’s “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders” alongside the Pope and Dalai Lama. She thinks this is hilarious. Actually, she has been named to lots of lists and received many awards, but she will not let us list them here because she thinks lists and awards are silly.

Lublin has a BA from Brown University, an M.Litt from Oxford University (as a Marshall Scholar), and a law degree from New York University. She lives in Manhattan with her Husband (Jason Diaz) and two children. They spend their free time visiting the nation’s best water parks and ice cream shops.