Our people
Operation Smile’s leadership team helps to ensure we make the most efficient use of our precious resources. Our Board of Directors work tirelessly around the world to ensure our patients receive the highest quality cleft care and that we’re able to achieve our ambitious goal to reach 1 million patients in our next decade.
Our co-founders
Dr William P Magee Jr
Bill co-founded Operation Smile in 1982 with his wife Kathy in Norfolk, Virginia, USA. He is a plastic and craniofacial surgeon and serves as Operation Smile Inc. Chief Executive Officer at our global headquarters.
Over forty years, Bill has not only trained and mentored physicians worldwide, but he has taken Operation Smile into over 60 countries globally, building Operation Smile into a highly respected and leading organisation in cleft care provision for infants, children and young adults across the world.
Kathy Magee
Kathy Magee founded Operation Smile in 1982 with her husband, Dr. Bill Magee, and currently serves as its president on a full-time, volunteer basis. Kathy is also a lifetime member of the Board of Directors, overseeing funding and long-held organizational relationships. Kathy shapes future strategy and leads project design within medical mission programming and the education, training and student departments.
As a New Jersey native, Kathy received her B.S.N. from Misericordia University in Pennsylvania, her M.Ed. from the University of Maryland and her M.S.W. from Norfolk State University in Virginia. She also completed graduate work at the University of Virginia and the Jung Institute in Switzerland. She is a mother of five and grandmother to 14, all of whom participate in Operation Smile to promote service for the next generation.
Kathy is the recipient of honorary degrees from Fordham University, Mount St. Mary’s University in Maryland, Loyola University in Maryland, Old Dominion University, Misericordia University and Denison University and was inducted into the Alumni Association Hall of Fame of the University of Maryland in 2000. In 2014, she received a prestigious honorary doctorate from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.
