Maureen Trantham's diverse background spans media, education, nonprofit management and business strategy. She currently serves as the Chief Operating Officer for GiveDirectly, which uses technology to send cash directly to people living in poverty.

Maureen was previously the Head of Strategy and Operations for Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization behind Sesame Street. In this capacity, she led both enterprise-wide strategic planning for the Workshop and the delivery of results across Sesame's global social impact efforts including the organization's work supporting displaced children in crisis contexts and children from marginalized communities in the U.S. In her 5+ years at Sesame, she scaled operations to deliver on the largest early childhood intervention in the history of humanitarian response – supported by $200M in funding from the MacArthur and LEGO Foundations.

Prior to joining Sesame, Maureen served as a management consultant and Director for Booz & Company and PwC Strategy&—supporting global media and technology companies on a variety of strategic, operational, and organizational issues. Before that, Maureen led Partnership for Learning, a Washington state education policy and advocacy nonprofit representing the state’s 40 largest employers and focused on promoting college and work readiness for all students. She began her career as an international journalist and has worked for newspapers in Thailand and China.

Named a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader in 2023, Maureen also serves as an active Term Member on the Council on Foreign Relations. She holds a BA in Journalism and the Comparative History of Ideas from the University of Washington and an MBA from the New York University Stern School of Business and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and son.