Frances Hesselbein
Frances Hesselbein
President and CEO
Leader to Leader Institute
Frances Hesselbein is the President and CEO of the Leader to Leader Institute (formerly the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management) and its Founding President. Mrs. Hesselbein was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States of America’s highest civilian honor, in 1998. The award recognized her leadership as CEO of Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. from 1976-1990, her role as the Founding President of the Drucker Foundation, and her service as “a pioneer for women, volunteerism, diversity and opportunity.” Her contributions were also recognized by the first President Bush, who appointed her to two Presidential Commissions on National and Community Service.
In 2009, Mrs. Hesselbein was appointed the Class of 1951 Chair for the Study of Leadership at the United States Military Academy at West Point, in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership. She is the first woman, and the first non-graduate to serve in this chair. Also in 2009, the University of Pittsburgh introduced The Hesselbein Global Academy for Student Leadership and Civic Engagement. The Academy’s aim is to produce experience and ethical leaders who will address the most critical national and international issues and to advance positive social and economic initiatives throughout the world.
She serves on many nonprofit and private sector corporate boards, including the Board of the Mutual of America Life Insurance Company, New York, the Bright China Social Fund, the American Express Philanthropy, the Boards of the Center for Social Initiative at the Harvard Business School, the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Management at the Kennedy School, and U.C.S.D. Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies and Center for Creative Leadership’s Alliance Advisory Council. She was the Chairman of the National Board of Directors for Volunteers of America from 2002-2006 and is the recipient of twenty honorary doctoral degrees.
In 2008, Mrs. Hesselbein was presented with the International Leadership Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Los Angeles, and the Tempo International Leadership Award in New York City. She was named a Senior Leader at the United States Military Academy, 2008 National Conference on Ethics in America. In 2007, Mrs. Hesselbein was awarded the John F. Kennedy Memorial Fellowship by Fulbright New Zealand and was the first recipient of the Dwight D. Eisenhower National Security Award in 2003.
Mrs. Hesselbein is Editor-in-Chief of the award-winning quarterly journal Leader to Leader, and a co-editor of a book of the same name. She is the author of Hesselbein on Leadership and with General Eric K. Shinseki, introduced Be, Know, Do: Leadership the Army Way. Mrs. Hesselbein is the co-editor of 27 books in 29 languages.
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