Emily Musil, PhD, is managing director at Milken Institute Strategic Philanthropy, where she leads the Environmental and Social Innovation portfolio. An expert in future-focused, high-impact engagement and programming, Musil and her team create strategies for expansive and effective giving, designing and operating programs that utilize a range of philanthropic tools focused on innovation and impact. Under her leadership, she has built the Milken Institute Prize Program and developed wide-ranging programming, including the mobilization and support of hundreds of entrepreneurs working on FinTech in emerging economies, as well as cross-sector workshops to design new solutions to create thriving communities in the United States.

Musil spent over a decade in academia as a college professor of history and international studies. She then joined the XPRIZE Foundation, where she led the education and human equity domain, overseeing initiatives and large-scale innovation competitions aimed at discovering and testing new technological solutions to global challenges. She is particularly passionate about exploring the ethics of our rapidly advancing technologies.

She has a PhD and MA from UCLA and graduated with honors from Drew University. She won a Fulbright-Hays Research Fellowship and conducted in-depth research in more than a dozen countries across three continents. Musil has served on the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Senior Advisory Group for Blended Finance and the Advisory Board for CompTIA’s Center for Technology & Workforce Solutions. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees for Drew University.