Hilary Pennington

Hilary Pennington is the executive vice president of the Ford Foundation, overseeing all of Ford’s programs globally, working closely across programs and offices to ensure strategic, meaningful, and well-aligned global grantmaking. She also oversees the foundation’s BUILD and Ford Global Fellowship programs and the Office of Strategy and Learning. From 2013-2017, she served as the foundation’s vice president for Education, Creativity, and Free Expression. Prior to joining Ford, Hilary led the Postsecondary Success strategy and U.S. Special Initiatives at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Generations Initiative. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. For 20 years, she led Jobs for the Future (JFF), a nationally recognized organization working to advance economic and educational opportunity which she co-founded.

She holds a B.A. in English and MBA from Yale University, a graduate diploma in Social Anthropology from the University of Oxford, and a Masters of Theological Studies from the Episcopal Divinity School.