Kristie Magee Porcaro, B.S.N.

Kristie Magee Porcaro is Chief Strategy Officer at Operation Smile, where she leads the organization’s global strategy, marketing and communications, and global development efforts. As a member of the executive leadership team, she plays a central role in shaping the organization’s long-term direction, strengthening its global network and building the philanthropic and strategic partnerships necessary to expand access to safe, high-quality surgical care around the world.

Porcaro led the development of Operation Smile’s 10-year strategic roadmap and now oversees efforts to translate that vision into measurable action. Working across fundraising, marketing, programs and international operations, she is focused on building the organizational alignment, partnerships and resources needed to create sustainable systems of care and bring safe surgery closer to patients and communities.

Her leadership extends across Operation Smile’s global network of foundations, boards and local leadership teams spanning 37 program and seven partner countries throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa. Known for a highly relational and collaborative leadership style, Porcaro has a particular ability to bring together people, organizations and ideas around a shared purpose. She is passionate about cultivating relationships that go beyond individual projects or transactions and instead create lasting impact for patients, communities and partners.

A seasoned philanthropic and partnership leader, Porcaro has helped build and steward relationships with some of the world’s leading corporations and healthcare companies, including Johnson & Johnson, Stryker, Baxter and Align Technology. Her approach has helped Operation Smile evolve traditional corporate philanthropy into deeper, mission-aligned partnerships that leverage funding, expertise, employee engagement and shared priorities to advance global health.

That same relationship-centered approach has shaped Operation Smile’s broader development strategy. Porcaro and her team work closely with individuals, families, corporations and foundations to connect donors with opportunities that reflect both their philanthropic goals and Operation Smile’s most pressing strategic priorities. Under her leadership, the organization continues to strengthen its fundraising capabilities and pursue increasingly ambitious opportunities for transformational philanthropy.

Porcaro is also an active voice in global health, philanthropy and development. She has spoken at the Concordia Annual Summit during the United Nations General Assembly, contributed thought leadership to Devex and helped convene leaders across sectors, including through the Partnership for Quality Medical Donations (PQMD). Through these platforms, she advocates for collaboration across the nonprofit, corporate, medical and philanthropic sectors as a critical pathway to expanding sustainable access to care.

Before joining Operation Smile, Porcaro spent five years with Community Counseling Service (CCS) in New York City, where she supported major fundraising initiatives for organizations including UNICEF, Doctors Without Borders, Pace University and the Archdiocese of New York. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Villanova University, a background that continues to inform her understanding of patients, healthcare systems and the human impact behind Operation Smile’s mission.

For Porcaro, that mission is deeply personal. Her connection to Operation Smile began in childhood. At age 10, she accompanied her parents, Operation Smile co-founders Dr. Bill Magee and Kathy Magee, on a surgical program in Colombia. As she watched families seek care, she found herself thinking about the patients the medical team would not be able to reach before returning home. The experience left her with a question that would ultimately shape her career: How do we create access to care that lasts long after a surgical program ends?

Today, that question continues to inform her leadership. From developing global strategy and cultivating transformational partnerships to strengthening local leadership and building sustainable systems of care, Porcaro is helping guide Operation Smile toward a future in which geography and circumstance are no longer barriers to safe surgery.

She lives in Norfolk, Virginia, with her husband and three sons.