Marguerite Kondracke

President and CEO, America's Promise Alliance

During her 30 year career, Marguerite Kondracke has been both an entrepreneur and a public servant. In the private sector for 20 years, she has been CEO of three companies: a start-up, a roll-up, and a turn-around. She founded the start-up, Corporate Family Solutions, in 1987 with Lamar Alexander and Bob Keeshan, television’s Captain Kangaroo, to provide more and better child care for working parents through employer sponsorship. It became the nation’s largest provider of workplace child care, and she took the company public in 1997 (Nasdaq: BFAM). Kondracke retired as CEO of the company, now called Bright Horizons Family Solutions, in 1999, and continued on the board until returning to public service in 2003. The company today is a $500 million enterprise employing over 20,000 people, serving over 300 corporate clients at over 450 child care centers in five countries. It has three times been named one of Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For.”

Prior to founding the child care company, Ms. Kondracke served in Tennessee state government, where she developed and led then-Governor Lamar Alexander’s statewide four-year “Healthy Children Initiative.” She later served in the cabinet of Governor Alexander as Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Human Services.

Prior to joining America's Promise, she served as Special Assistant to U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander as well as Staff Director for the Senate Subcommittee on Children and Families. Her focus in the 108th Congress has been on education, health care, social welfare, and the challenges of working families, especially military families.

Ms. Kondracke has received numerous awards and honors, including regional Entrepreneur of the Year, awarded by Ernst &Young. In 1994, she was named the first woman to chair the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce. Today she is a member of the board of Saks, Inc. (NYSE: SKS), chairman of the board of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA), and a trustee of Washington’s Arena Stage, a leader in the regional theater movement. Ms. Kondracke is also a member of the Board of Visitors at Duke University’s Terry Sanford School of Public Policy, and serves on the advisory boards of two investment banking firms, Avondale Partners of Nashville, Tennessee, and HLM Venture Partners of Boston.

An undergraduate alumna of Duke University, she also holds a master’s degree from Austin Peay State University.