Wes Moore

Wes Moore’s life is both an inspiring story and a cautionary tale. As a troubled youth growing up in the inner-city, Wes’s life could have tumbled down a dangerous path. Fortunately a series of factors, including the transformative power of education coupled with faithful mentors, helped launch Wes into success and give him a powerful platform with which he can alter the lives of other troubled youth.

Wes first gained notoriety after penning his first book, which became an instant NY Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. This landmark publication, The Other Wes Moore, illustrates how decisions become destiny. The story takes readers into the neighborhood where Wes grew up, which just happened to have another boy of the same name. However, today the “other Wes Moore” is in prison serving a life sentence, while our Wes went on to be a host and Executive Producer of Beyond Belief on the Oprah Winfrey Network and the acclaimed Coming Back with Wes Moore on PBS.

Wes graduated Phi Theta Kappa from Valley Forge Military College and Phi Beta Kappa from Johns Hopkins University. He has also completed an MLitt in International Relations from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and was granted a White House fellowship. A decorated combat veteran, he served as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan. While a student at Johns Hopkins, he founded STAND!, which pairs troubled teens with college mentors. He has been featured by USA Today, People Magazine, Meet the Press, The Colbert Report, The View, MSNBC and NPR.

Today, Wes Moore’s mission is to help young people succeed and make the right choices through education and awareness along-side the support of their parents, teachers and mentors. Moore is the Founder and CEO of BridgeEdU, an innovative college platform that addresses the college completion and job placement crisis by reinventing the freshman year in a way that engages students in real-world internships and service-learning opportunities in addition to providing an academic foundation. He is also the author of The Work, to be released in January, which chronicles Wes’s journey to discover meaning in his work and how he found that meaning in service.

Drawing on his experiences as a military leader, his innovations in education and his business acumen, Moore now speaks on his compelling message that it is the vitality of leadership and the presence of committed support networks that leads to success – from the smallest school to the largest corporation.