LI ZHOU

Vice President of Strategic Partnerships

Li Zhou (she/her) is an action-oriented advocate working to bridge across sectors and stakeholders to cultivate strong partnerships and magnify impact. She has served as a proactive thought-partner and orchestrator adept at leading projects and implementing processes during periods of dynamic organizational growth and evolution.

Most recently, Zhou was the Chief of Staff of the Audacious Project, a collaboration between a leading group of nonprofits and social entrepreneurs driving a new philanthropic model to inspire change at scale. In this role, she served as a connective thread across the arc of Audacious’ work, ensuring the identification, iteration and execution of strategic and operational priorities. Previously she served as Program Officer as well as the Research Program Manager, overseeing the pipeline and curation of bold ideas to help Audacious catalyze over $3B in support of 39 projects located across the globe.

Prior to TED, Zhou served as a political appointee under the Obama Administration at the Departments of Commerce and Treasury, where she helped shape policies for the economy and developed public-private partnerships. With a range of experiences across the nonprofit, philanthropic, and government sectors, she has created and scaled programs, promoted social policy reforms, and channeled funding for issues including economic inclusion, immigration, and gender and racial equity. Li earned her BA from Colgate University and her MBA from NYU Stern.