Eason Jordan is the Rockefeller Foundation's Senior Vice President, Connected Leaders.

An entrepreneur and executive, he previously helped launch and lead CNN, NowThis, Malala Fund, Oryx Strategies, Poll Position and Praedict.

He has made hundreds of working trips to more than 70 nations, including a dozen war zones on five continents, and is a long-time member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

At CNN, Jordan rose through the ranks from a $3.25-an-hour desk assistant to become the network's chief news executive and president of newsgathering and international networks, overseeing CNN's news coverage and international outlets, expansion and relations.

He later served as the founding general manager of NowThis, a groundbreaking millennial-focused mobile, social video news service.

More recently, as the first director of the girls' education-focused Malala Fund, Jordan was the closest adviser to Malala Yousafzai, the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize winner and UN Messenger of Peace.

Jordan also co-founded and led two information services companies: the public opinion-focused Poll Position and the war zone safety-focused Praedict.

His honors include Emmy Awards, Peabody Awards, Edward R. Murrow Awards, Headliner Awards, ACE Awards, the Robert Kennedy Journalism Award, the Vanguard Award and the Livingston Award.

Jordan's op-ed articles have appeared in dozens of newspapers including The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Wall Street Journal and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Time magazine featured his exclusive 1997 reporting from North Korea on the famine there.

He has made guest appearances on PBS, NPR, the BBC, Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, Israeli TV, Chinese TV, Indian TV, Pakistani TV, TV Asahi and Fuji TV.

Jordan's university engagements include lectures at Harvard, Columbia, Georgetown, UCLA, Miami, Michigan, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Drexel, Fordham, Hampden-Sydney, Emory, Georgia Tech and the American University of Beirut.

He attended Georgia State University and DeKalb College.

Jordan serves on the advisory board of Women for Women International, the advisory council of Stanford's Human Perception Lab, and the board of trustees of the Fugees Family.