Carolyn Wendell

Carolyn Wendell leads strategy, planning, and management for the Early Learning & Assessments team within the U.S. Program division. She previously held various senior officer roles, most recently within the Foundation Strategy Office, where she led strategy and implementation projects across various U.S Program teams, and prior to that on the Pneumonia and Vaccine Development & Surveillance teams within Global Health.

Carolyn’s main strategic projects within Global Health included expanding investments to research a one-dose human papillomavirus vaccine, clinical trial site preparedness for COVID-19 vaccine efficacy studies, and integrated disease surveillance.

Before joining the Gates Foundation in 2017, Carolyn worked at Google on the post-sales adoption team within Google for Education. In that role, she started and scaled up the Google Educator Group program and launched the Google Certified Innovator program in the developing world. Carolyn began her career working for Grassroot Soccer, a global health nonprofit that focuses on educating African youth on HIV awareness and prevention and other crucial health issues.

Carolyn holds a B.A from Dartmouth College and an M.B.A from INSEAD.

In her free time, Carolyn enjoys climbing, trail running and skiing in Washington State.