Meredith Walker

Meredith Walker is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls. Walker began her television career under the mentorship of legendary journalist Linda Ellerbee at Nick News. As a producer of that show, Walker traveled to nearly every state in the U.S. interviewing kids for the Peabody and Emmy award-winning series. This experience became the foundation of Walker’s deepening interest in the lives of young people.

Walker went on to serve as the head of the Talent Department for Saturday Night Live, where she met her best friend, Amy Poehler. The pair decided to combine talents to create their shared vision of an organization encouraging and celebrating everyday girls experiencing adolescence.

Now living in Austin, Texas, Meredith is leading the charge of what that shared vision became: Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls. What started as an online “clubhouse” primarily for girls has evolved to become an inclusive, positive online community for Smart girls and boys alike - anyone who identifies with its mission of positive empowerment and advocacy of causes relating to education, creativity, leadership and more.

Walker has traveled as the journalism envoy for the U.S. State Department Bureau of Culture and Education’s mission to the Al Za’atari and Emirates Refugee Camps for Syrians and visited remote primary-care clinics in Haiti and rural villages in Malawi. She has documented the status of women and girls around the world with global aid delegations, participated on numerous panels, and earned the title of “distinguished lecturer”– much to the surprise of some of her college classmates!

Meredith was a 2016 WIlliam J. Clinton Distinguished Lecturer at the Clinton School for Public Service and served on a delegation to Haiti with CARE and Hope Through Healing Hands. Meredith’s appointments include the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders Advisory Council ,Common Sense Advisory Board on Gender Equality.