Linda A. Mason

Linda A. Mason

Linda Mason is an American charity executive and is the chairwoman and co-founder of Bright Horizons Family Solutions,^[1] a global provider of employer-sponsored child care, emergency back-up care for children and adults/elders, educational advising, and global work/life consulting.

Bright Horizons Family Solutions operates more than 750 child development centers for 850 employers in 40 states, Europe, and India. Bright Horizons also operates eight elementary schools, private and charter. The company employs 20,000 people in six countries and serves more than 80,000 families.

Mason was one of five corporate recipients of the Ron Brown Award for Corporate Leadership presented by President Bill Clinton.^[2] She was the 1996 recipient of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award,^[3] one of Business Week's 1997 "Best Entrepreneurs.^[4] Bright Horizons was selected by FORTUNE magazine in January 2014 for the 15th time as one of the “100 Best Companies to Work For in America.”^[5] Bright Horizons is partnering with First Lady Michelle Obama on her national “Let's Move!” child anti-obesity campaign.^[6]

Mason is the author of The Working Mother’s Guide to Life,^[7] published in November 2002 by Random House. She has written and spoken in such venues as NPR,^[8] the MIT Sloan School of Management Leadership Series,^[9] and the Harvard Business Review,^[10] on early education and the issues of corporate work/life policies and challenges, including participating on White House work/life panels and initiatives during the Clinton administration.

Mason also co-founded Horizons for Homeless Children,^[11] a Boston-based organization that serves the needs of homeless children throughout New England.

International

Mason is Chair^[12] of Mercy Corps, a $300 million international relief and development agency headquartered in the U.S.^[13] In her capacity as Chair, Mason has traveled frequently to regions such as the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia.^[14]

Mason served as Co-Country Director of Save the Children's emergency program in Sudan during the African famine of 1984-85, creating a national program that served 400,000 Sudanese famine victims.^[15] Mason also directed a large feeding program for malnourished children in Cambodian refugee camps along the Thai border after the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia of 1979. She co-authored the book, Rice, Rivalry, and Politics^[16] (University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), which looked at the politics and the challenges of the Cambodian relief operation.

Additional background

Mason studied at the Sorbonne and the Conservatoire Rachmaninoff in Paris. She also worked at the New York and Paris offices of Booz, Allen & Hamilton. Mason has a BA from Cornell University and an MBA from the Yale School of Management.^[17]

Mason has held leadership positions on the boards of several important non-profit institutions, serving as: Chair of Mercy Corps;^[18] Co-Founder of Horizons for Homeless Children;^[19] Trustee of Yale University;^[20] Chair of the Yale School of Management Advisory Board,^[21] trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,^[22] and trustee of the Packard Foundation.^[23]

References