Hilary Pennington

Vice President, Education, Free Expression and Creativity at the Ford Foundation

Hilary Pennington serves as Vice President, Education, Free Expression and Creativity at the Ford Foundation. Prior to joining the foundation, she worked as an independent consultant on postsecondary education, transitions from high school, and intergenerational change.

Her projects included the Next American University project of the New America Foundation and leadership of The Generations Initiative, a project funded by national foundations to develop effective responses to the challenges and opportunities of the dramatic demographic shifts occurring in the U.S.

From 2006-2012, she served as Director of Education, Postsecondary Success & Special Initiatives, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where she led the foundation’s postsecondary education initiative as well as one-time opportunities to respond to unique challenges and unanticipated events in the United States.

Before joining the Gates foundation, Pennington served as a Senior Fellow at the progressive think tank the Center for American Progress and as President and CEO of Jobs for the Future (JFF), a research and policy development organization she co-founded. In her twenty-two years as President and CEO of JFF, Pennington helped the organization become one of the most influential in the country on issues of education, youth transitions, workforce development, and future work requirements. She also served on President Clinton’s transition team and as co-chair of President Clinton’s Presidential Advisory Committee on Technology.

Pennington is a graduate of the Yale School of Management and Yale College. She holds a graduate degree in Social Anthropology from Oxford University and a Masters of Theological Studies from the Episcopal Divinity School. She was a Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in 2000.


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