Frances Hesselbein

Frances Hesselbein is the president and CEO of the Leader to Leader Institute (formerly the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management) and served as its founding president. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States of America's highest civilian honor, in 1998. The award recognized her leadership as Chief Executive Officer 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, diversity, and inclusion." Her contributions were also recognized by former President Bush, who appointed her to two Presidential Commissions on National and Community Service.

She serves on many nonprofit and private sector corporate boards, including the Board of the Mutual of America Life Insurance Company, New York, the Veterans of Corporation Advisory Board, 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. She was the Chairman of the National Board of Directors for the Volunteers of America from 2002-2006 and is the recipient of twenty honorary doctoral degrees.

In 2007 Hesselbein was awarded the John F. Kennedy Memorial Fellowship by Fulbright New Zealand. In 2006, Hesselbein received three awards: Miss Hall's School Woman of Distinction Award from Miss Hall's School, the Champion of Workplace Learning and Performance Award from the American Society for Training and Development, and the Teachers College Medal for Distinguished Service from Columbia University's Teachers College. In 2006, she gave commencement addresses at St. Mary's University, San Antonio, Texas, and The University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota. In 2006, she sponsored the Frances Hesselbein Leadership Award for Research and the Frances Hesselbein Educator Leader Award at the U.S. Air Command and Staff College. During the Military Child Education Coalition's (MCEC) 8th Annual Conference in July 2006 the MCEC Board of Directors established the "Frances Hesselbein Student Leadership Program" in recognition of her dedication to the leadership development of the children of the military.

In 2001, Hesselbein was awarded the Henry A. Rosso Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Ethical Fund Raising from the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University and the International ATHENA Award. In 2002, Hesselbein was the first recipient of the Dwight D. Eisenhower National Security Series Award for her "outstanding contributions to America's national security." In 2003, the "Frances Hesselbein How-To-Be Award" was established and is presented annually at the Junior Achievement Worldwide Leadership Conference. The award recognizes Junior Achievement staff who live the Junior Achievement values of integrity, respect, and excellence through their examples of positive ethical leadership. In 2004, she received the Juliette Award from Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. and the 2004 Visionary Award from the American Society of Association Executives Foundation.

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 also is a co-editor of the Drucker Foundation's three-volume Future Series and Leading Beyond the Walls, and Leading for Innovation, Organizing for Results, the first two books in the Foundation's Wisdom to Action Series. She is co-editor with Dr. Marshall Goldsmith of The Leader of the Future 2: Visions, Strategies, and Practices for the New Era, published in 2006. She is the author of Hesselbein on Leadership and Be, Know, Do: Leadership the Army Way, introduced by General Eric K. Shinseki, and she was published in February of 2004. She is the co-editor of 24 books in 28 languages.