Jennifer Kitt
President
Jennifer is president of Climate Lead, where she leads the organization as it builds a model to harness philanthropists’ interest, passion, and generosity to increase philanthropic funding for the most profound challenge of our time. As an advisor to donors, head of the leadership team and a trusted strategic partner for organizations working to address the climate crisis, she is focused on building a community to bring new donors into the climate space to fund promising, far-reaching solutions.
Jennifer brings more than 20 years of experience working with philanthropists, corporations, and foundations to fund high-impact causes. She also has decades of experience in community building, philanthropic collaboration, and complex problem solving.
Prior to joining Climate Lead, Jennifer was the chief development officer for Stanford University’s Medical Center, Stanford’s largest fundraising team with more than 140 staff focused on serving both the School of Medicine and the Stanford Health Care clinical system. At Stanford, Jennifer worked closely with distinguished faculty and university leaders, trustees, and members of the Stanford Medicine boards. She helped grow fundraising during her more than seven years there from $150 million to more than $300 million annually for fundamental research, clinical research, and research and clinical buildings, including the new Stanford Hospital.
Before Stanford, Jennifer served in senior management roles at the University of California, Berkeley, including leading development programs for parents, reunions and campaign regions. Prior to working in higher education, she was a senior attorney for IBM, where she learned to think strategically, solve complex problems, and build partnerships even in tough negotiations. Jennifer earned JD and bachelor’s degrees at Georgetown University. She is fluent in French.
Jennifer serves as a fundraising consultant to several faith organizations in the Episcopal diocese and Jewish congregations and is a board member at Synapse School in Menlo Park. As the mother of two boys, Jennifer is focused every day on the responsibility of our generation at this moment in time to heal planet Earth.
