Gayle Peterson is co-founder and senior partner of Headwaters Group Philanthropic Services, which offers global advisory services in business and social sector strategies with a focus on poverty, global development and food security, social enterprise, monitoring and evaluation, intermediary services, and organizational and leadership development. She is also currently a fellow at the Oxford Said Business School with her focus of research on best practices in global philanthropy to address issues facing women and children. Ms. Peterson previously served as program director of the Great Lakes Protection Fund, a bi-national foundation dedicated to sustainable development through conservation and collaboration, and as executive director of the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy. She is currently a master of science candidate at the HEC Paris School of Management. She earned an M.A. in social policy, with a focus on civil society and the law, from the University of Chicago, and a bachelor of social work degree in social policy from the University of Illinois.