Jennifer Kitt is the founding president of the Climate Leadership Initiative (CLI) 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 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, foundations to fund high-impact causes. She also brings decades of experience in community building, philanthropic collaboration and complex problem solving.

Prior to joining CLI, Jennifer was the chief development officer for Stanford University’s Medical Center Development, 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 7+ years there from $150M annually to more than $300M 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 UC 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 doctor of jurisprudence and bachelor of science degrees at Georgetown University.

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.