Jerry White
Award-winning entrepreneur, activist, author, professor, and diplomat
Jerry White is an award-winning entrepreneur, author, professor, diplomat, and nonprofit executive with 35+ years’ experience improving the lives of millions of people worldwide. White shares in the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and is best known for leading high-impact campaigns, three of which led to international treaties: the Mine Ban Treaty; the Cluster Munitions Ban; and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
White grew up in a large Irish Catholic family outside Boston and was the first Christian to graduate with a degree in Judaic Studies from Brown University, studying under the most prolific rabbi in history, the late Jacob Neusner. In 1984, while on a pilgrimage in the holy land, White stepped on a landmine in the Golan Heights, losing his lower right leg and spending six months recovering at Tel Aviv’s largest rehabilitation center. Since that time, White has dedicated his life in service to humanity, working to transform conflict and advance human flourishing.
In 1995, White founded the world’s first international organization created by and for landmine survivors, becoming an adviser to the late Diana, Princess of Wales. He was trusted to plan in secret what was to be Princess Diana’s last humanitarian mission visiting war victims in Bosnia-Herzegovina just three weeks before her untimely death. White then worked closely with King Hussein and Queen Noor of Jordan to demine the Jordan River Valley, including the Baptismal Site of Jesus. White has helped thousands of war victims get legs, get jobs, and get on with their lives, recounting how trauma survivors can overcome victimhood and build resilience in his first book, Getting Up When Life Knocks You Down.
In 2012, White was recruited by the Obama Administration to serve three years in Senior Executive Services as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, launching the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations. Working with a team of intelligence analysts and game theorists, White introduced advanced decision analytics and data-driven diplomacy to predict with high accuracy the likely outcomes of complex negotiations and regional conflicts.
A Senior Ashoka Fellow, White recently ran the world’s largest grassroots interfaith network—the United Religions Initiative—launching their five-year strategic framework to introduce an evidence-based health approach to violence prevention in 110 countries.
White received his Executive MBA from the University of Michigan and studied religion and theology at Cambridge University. He has honorary degrees from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, University of Massachusetts Boston, and Glasgow Caledonia University in Scotland. He taught for seven years as an interdisciplinary Professor of Practice at the University of Virginia, where he completed research and co-authored with Dr. Georgette Bennett a book on Religicide: Confronting the Roots of Anti-Religious Violence (2022).
His latest book, Be See Do: The Art of Humane Leadership (2026), has been called a “master class on strategy for a rising generation.” White currently serves as the Chair of Made Impact, a global initiative designed to spread peace and prosperity through international exchange. He lives surrounded by wildlife in the woods of Piscataway National Park with his wife Kelly, a novelist and writing professor, reasonably close to their four adult kids in Washington, DC.