Betty Hudson is an award-winning communications industry leader with more than four decades of experience in every aspect of corporate and strategic communications, including consumer, employee, financial and cause related marketing, as well as brand and communications management. Hudson retired (or as she puts it, "graduated") as Chief Communications Officer of the National Geographic Society at the end of 2015, having held similar roles with NBC, The Readers Digest Association and iVillage. Hudson was a member of the Society's senior management team that led the organization through its transformation from a grant making institution with a high profile magazine into one of the world's most influential science and research organizations, pushing the boundaries of exploration, with a powerful media partnership and multifaceted global platform working to further better understanding of our planet. She now consults with business leaders, non-profit organizations and for-profit entities on a wide range of communications issues. Hudson spent 28 years as a member of the AFLAC Board of Directors, serving on the company's Finance and Investment Committee, and as Chair of the Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability Committee, the creation of which she led. She co-chairs the Washington, DC Chapter of Women Corporate Directors, a global organization of more than 4000 women serving on more than 8500 corporate boards worldwide, and is a member of the WCD global advisory council, and is a member of the International Advisory Council of APCO Worldwide, one of the world's leading advisory and advocacy consultancies. Active in community affairs, Hudson sits on the Board of Kakenya's Dream, a boarding school for Masai girls in rural Kenya, and Planet Forward, a multi-university initiative working to elevate the caliber of environmental journalism. She has recently joined the Board of Directors of the AARP Foundation, and the Board of Advisors of The University of Global Health Equity, founded by Dr Paul Farmer and Dr Agnes Binagwaho in Rwanda. Hudson is a member of the Board of Trust for the Grady School of Communications at the University of Georgia, from which she graduated. She is a past president of the New York Women's Agenda and the Montclair Board of Education in Montclair, New Jersey, and a former chair of the Inova Fairfax Childrens Hospital Quality Board. She is also a former board member of the Inova Health Care Services Board and the Associates Board of Directors of the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts. She and her journalist husband, Boyd Matson, split time between Washington, DC and Fort Worth, Texas, when not chasing their global travel « bucket list ».