Erin Thornton

Erin Thornton is the Executive Director for Every Mother Counts where she is responsible for guiding policy engagement, leveraging strategic partnerships and providing viewers with meaningful opportunities to learn and engage on the issue. Prior to joining EMC, Erin served as the Global Policy Director for ONE, an advocacy and campaigning organization with more than 2 million supporters dedicated to the fight against extreme poverty and preventable disease. A veteran of ONE and its predecessor organization, DATA, Erin was in on the ground floor of building both organizations. She merged the policy operations of the two organizations, developed flagship products including the annual DATA Report and the ONE Award and also built the trips function. In addition, she has extensive experience engaging on public health issues and translating them to campaigns and also in communicating linkages to broader developmental issues.

Before ONE, Erin was selected as a Presidential Management Fellow. In that role, she worked at the United States Export-Import Bank as a country risk analyst for sub-Saharan Africa and at the U.S. State Department in the International Health Affairs office. Erin is a phi beta kappa graduate of Duke University with a double major in Comparative Area Studies and History. She received her master’s degree in International Relations from Yale University. Erin has travelled extensively throughout Africa, and has studied in Zimbabwe and South Africa.