Geraldine Acuña-Sunshine

The first Filipino elected to Harvard University’s Board of Overseers, Geraldine Acuña-Sunshine is a leader whose influence extends from elite institutions to grassroots communities. Her historic election to this governing body broke a centuries-old glass ceiling, granting a Filipino voice the power to shape the strategic direction and academic standards of the world’s most prestigious university.

Trained as a lawyer in New York and Boston, she spent over a decade advising on finance and public policy before turning her attention fully to social impact. As president and CEO of Khan Academy Philippines, Acuña-Sunshine oversaw the country’s first international Khan Academy licence, a milestone that has allowed the platform to align its world-class content with the local Department of Education curriculum.

Under her leadership the organisation has scaled rapidly, growing from a 34‑school pilot into a programme reaching 2,500 public schools nationwide for the 2024–2025 academic year. In December 2024 she spearheaded the launch of Khanmigo, an innovative AI-powered teaching assistant now accessible for free to Filipino teachers and students. The tool has been praised by Education Secretary Sonny Angara as transformative, citing its potential to ease teachers’ administrative loads and deepen classroom engagement.

Acuña-Sunshine is driven by a belief in empowering others, building systems that create lasting opportunities for the Philippine community. Her ultimate legacy lies in enabling futures previously out of reach, whether through educational reform or her parallel work in medical philanthropy as the founder of the Sunshine Care Foundation.