Jill Vialet

Jill Vialet has worked for more than 25 years in the nonprofit sector, during which she has focused her entrepreneurial skills on founding and growing two successful nonprofit organizations. In 1996, Vialet launched Playworks with two schools in Berkeley, California. Currently the organization brings play and physical activities to children across the country, with offices in 23 cities. During the 2015-16 school year Playworks will serve over 750,000 students through direct and training services, reaching more than 1300 schools and youth-serving organizations.

Vialet is a graduate of Harvard University an Ashoka Fellow and an Aspen- Pahara Fellow. In 2009, Vialet and Playworks were selected as a member of the Clinton Global Initiative. In 2011 Jill was named by Forbes magazine as one of the top 30 leading social entrepreneurs and recognized by the Women’s Sports Foundation as one of 40 Women Leaders in honor of the anniversary of Title IX. In 2013 Jill was awarded the James Irvine Leadership Award. During the 2015-16, Jill is serving as an education Fellow at Stanford's Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design (better known as the d.school), where she is looking at how we might redesign the way we recruit, tain and support substitute teachers.

Jill Vialet is the author of Recess Rules a novel for kids ages 8-13 about Cassie Murphy and her four best friends who bane together to save recess at their school.