Priscilla Chan, Cofounder & Co-CEO, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
View From The Top — Stanford Graduate School of Business
Priscilla Chan on Social Impact and Systemic Change
Priscilla Chan is a physician, educator, and philanthropist who, along with her husband Mark Zuckerberg, founded the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) in 2015. CZI aims to leverage technology, community-driven solutions, and collaboration to help solve some of the world’s toughest challenges. In a View from the Top conversation with Joy Pong and Rex Woodbury, Chan shared her personal story, her journey to social impact, and her insights on systemic change.
Chan’s Personal Story
Priscilla Chan is the daughter of Chinese Vietnamese refugees. Her grandparents were business people in Vietnam who worked at canning pineapple, making paper, and running a restaurant. When the war in Vietnam was getting to be a dark place, Chan’s grandparents decided to smuggle their children out of the country in pairs or threes to have company on the journey. In the middle of the night, they sent their kids off into the South China Sea in hopes that they would see each other again.
Chan’s parents eventually arrived in an Irish Catholic town outside of Boston, where they…
