Linda Mason '80 Chairman & Founder Bright Horizons Family Solutions

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Ms. Mason is chair and founder of Bright Horizons Family Solutions, the largest worldwide provider of work site early education. The company operates more than 750 child development centers in 45 states, Europe, and India. Clients include JPMorgan Chase, Motorola, Time Warner, Cisco Systems, IBM, the United Nations, Pfizer Pharmaceutical, Johnson & Johnson, Yale University, MIT University, Johns Hopkins University, Universal Studios, Marriott Corporation, and Paramount Pictures, among others. Bright Horizons also operates eight elementary schools, private and charter. The company employs 20,000 people and serves more than 80,000 families. The curriculum, World at Our Fingertips, is recognized as a leading high-quality curriculum in early education, focused on language, mathematical reasoning, scientific thought, and emotional development.

Bright Horizons was selected by Fortune magazine in 2012 for the 13th time as one of the "100 Best Companies to Work For in America." Linda Mason was one of five corporate recipients of the Ron Brown Award for Corporate Leadership presented by President Bill Clinton.

Ms. Mason also co-founded Horizons for Homeless Children, a Boston-based organization that serves the needs of homeless children throughout the Boston area and the Bright Horizons Foundation for Children which serves children in need across the country.

Prior to Bright Horizons, Ms. Mason managed large-scale refugee relief operations overseas. She served as co-country director of Save the Children’s emergency program in Sudan, serving 400,000 famine and war victims. She also directed a large feeding program for children in Cambodian refugee camps along the Thai border. She co-authored the book, Rice, Rivalry, and Politics (University of Notre Dame Press), which analyzes the relief operation in Cambodia, based on her experiences there. Ms. Mason has worked as a business consultant for Booz, Allen, and Hamilton in New York and Paris.

She is a graduate of the Yale School of Management, Cornell University, and the Sorbonne University in Paris, France. She is the 1996 recipient of the Ernst & Young/USA Today "National Entrepreneur of the Year," one of BusinessWeek’s 1997 "Best Entrepreneurs," and one of Working Mother magazine’s 1998 "25 most influential working mothers in America."

Ms. Mason is the author of The Working Mother’s Guide to Life, published in November 2002 by Random House. Upon publication of her book, Ms. Mason conducted a national seminar series and media tour to fifteen cities. Ms. Mason serves as chair of Mercy Corps and as trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Packard Foundation. She is a recent trustee of Yale University.