Mary Green Swig obtained a BA from the University of California, Berkeley, with a major in Political Science and Economics and has been, throughout her adult life, an advocate and activist for international diplomacy and peace.

As a business woman and the CEO of a successful international design firm, Mary Green Enterprises, she early on recognized the value of business as the international language, bringing together people from all of the countries she visited through commerce and trade. Starting in Afghanistan, Tunisia and Iran and then moving to China, she realized the potential to advance the position of women in business, working in China to advance the careers of women in the factories where they produced her designs.

As a mentor for others who wished to get involved in international trade, she published several newsletters, held importing seminars, had speaking engagements and co-authored a book on importing “How To Be An Importer and Pay For Your World Travel, considered to be the seminal work on beginning importing, encouraging untold people to join in the value of bringing the world together through trade and commerce.

She has been recognized for excellence in design and also for leadership in the fight for humanity and sustainability and won numerous awards including being honored by the Leading Women Entrepreneurs of the World with their Leadership Award, and receiving the Vision Award – Leadership from the Retinitis Pigmentosa Association for her Leadership abilities.

She is a co-founder of Freedom To Prosper, an organization devoted to changing the national conversation on student debt and getting all student debt cancelled. The activities of the organization stemmed from her work at the Advanced Leadership Initiative at Harvard University where she was a fellow and senior fellow in 2014 and 2015.

She is currently a member of the Advisory Board of Presidio Graduate School, which gives an MBA in sustainable Management, Board member of the Solar Electric Light fund, which provides Solar electrification to rural communities off the power grid, Board member of the Americans for Cures, in support of California’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine (stem cells), member of both the San Francisco-Shanghai and San Francisco-Haifa Sister City Committees, which are to foster international understanding and commerce between cities around the world. She is also a member of the Women’s Leadership Board at the Kennedy School at Harvard University and a member of the Harvard Law School Leadership Council.