Net worth $500 million Irene Pritzker became a founding member and President of the IDP Foundation, Inc. in 2008. It is her belief that education is the way to conquer the world’s greatest challenges, and that everyone should have equal access to education to provide hope, opportunity and economic impact on their homeland.

Irene Pritzker, President of the IDP Foundation

The IDP Foundation is dedicated to developing and supporting programs that are sustainable and move away from aid dependent models. She believes a combination of smart philanthropy and investment solutions can be galvanized to make that future a reality. Exemplifying this goal is the IDP Rising Schools Program, a carefully crafted microfinance initiative targeting existing but very poor private schools in Ghana. After a successful pilot with 105 schools with an initial enrollment of 27,000 children, the program is scaling and has currently reached almost 600 schools and impacted 150,000 children.