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Frances Hesselbein, Leadership Pioneer, Dies At 107

Frances Hesselbein, whose rise from humble beginnings in a rural steel town of western Pennsylvania carried her to the suites of Park Avenue and seven decades in executive and nonprofit leadership, is being mourned today by the philanthropic community following her death at the age of 107.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient and author, who spent 14 years as CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA, died peacefully at her home Sunday in Easton, Pennsylvania.

The news of her death was announced in a statement by the University of Pittsburgh, where her first classes at the age of 17 became what she later cited as the beginning of her lifelong love of learning. She returned to the university decades later to head its graduate program in nonprofit leadership, which today bears her name along with its student leadership academy and a lecture series.

“Frances’ actions and example shaped generations of leaders at a time when smart and sensible governance has never been more critical. And her personal credo — to serve is to live — infused her every step,” said University Chancellor Patrick Gallagher.

Hesselbein parlayed her work in the nonprofit sector to include additional appointments on several other boards, including Columbia University’s Teachers College and Mutual of America Life Insurance Company.

But it was Hesselbein’s leadership at Girl Scouts of the USA, where she began what she thought would be a six-week volunteer stint in her hometown of Johnstown, Pennsylvania in 1960, that defined her as a modernizing force for change by the time she rose through the organization’s ranks to become its first woman CEO in 1976.

The organization is “indebted to her” for her “transformational leadership,” which “ensured that more girls had access to experiences that enriched their lives and created impact in their communities and globally,” Girl Scouts CEO Sofia Chang said Monday.

Far from promulgating the status quo, Hesselbein “challenged herself and the organization to respond to changing cultural tides and the evolving needs of girls, ensuring that Girl Scouts has remained vital and relevant year after year, decade after decade,” added Karen Layng, chair of the Girl Scouts National Board of Directors. “Because of her, Girl Scouts has provided opportunities for girls of all ages to become women of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.”

After retiring from Girl Scouts in 1990, Hesselbein assumed the helm of the University of Pittsburgh’s Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management. Its mission, she often said, was to help build “a society of healthy children, strong families, decent housing, good schools, and work that dignifies.”

The institute, later renamed the Frances Hesselbein Leadership Forum, is housed today within the university’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.

Hesselbein’s leadership of the institute not only served as a capstone to her life’s achievements but also represented a homecoming of sorts, for it was as a 17-year-old that she scraped together $235 to attend her first classes at the university’s Johnstown campus, which then was housed inside two floors of Johnstown High School.

Her father’s death six weeks later forced her to give up her full-time studies for a full-time job, though she continued to take evening and Saturday classes. “It was the most amazingly rich education, and those two floors became magic — an inspiring symbol of excellence and equal access,” Hesselbein told a university audience in 2010. “My journey began long ago at my beloved Pitt and continues to this day.”

Julia Santucci, who took over as the Hesselbein Leadership Forum’s director in 2020, recalled to The NonProfit Times in an email Monday how she first met Hesselbein. Santucci was asked to design an updated leadership program in the fall of 2017. “What I will remember most about Frances is her eternal optimism,” Santucci wrote. “She used to say, ‘Even my blood type is B positive!’… Simply being in her presence made me feel hopeful for the future.”

Santucci also recalled Hesselbein once showing her an old photo of the Girl Scout troop she had led in Johnstown years earlier: “Serving alongside her in leadership positions were two Black women, whom she had elevated to those positions despite the deep segregation in Johnstown at that time,” Santucci wrote. Though aware of Hesselbein’s work to advance diversity and inclusion as Girl Scouts CEO, “that day I learned that this had been a part of Frances’ approach even from her earliest days of involvement with the organization,” Santucci said.

It was for these reasons that President Bill Clinton praised her as “a pioneer for women, volunteerism, diversity and opportunity” when in 1998 he awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. Previously, President George H.W. Bush had also honored her with appointment to the Presidential Commission on National and Community Service.

Hesselbein was additionally an author and co-author of several books, including Hesselbein on Leadership and My Life in Leadership, and a co-editor of over 30 others including a U.S. Army leadership manual whose foreword she collaborated on with retired General Eric Shinseki.

Hesselbein was also the recipient of 22 honorary doctoral degrees.

In 2015, at the age of 100, she was selected as one of Fortune magazine’s “The World’s 50 Greatest Leaders,” putting her in company with the likes of Pope Francis, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

“Age is irrelevant; it is what you do with your life that matters,” Hesselbein told the magazine.