Booz Allen Hamilton EVP Elected to Chair The Children’s Inn at NIH Board of Directors
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACTS:
Sonja Luecke, communications manger, The Children’s Inn at NIH
c: 901-340-1975 [email protected]
Fern Stone, chief communications and development officer, The Children’s Inn at NIH
c: 240-988-4259 [email protected]
BETHESDA, Md. (Jan. 14 2021) – Susan Penfield, Booz Allen Hamilton’s chief innovation officer and a member of the firm’s leadership team, has been elected to chair the board of directors of The Children’s Inn at the National Institutes of Health.
Thanks to her vast leadership experience, seven years of service on The Inn’s board of directors and more than 15 years of actively supporting The Children’s Inn’s mission through a wide range of transformative volunteer projects, Penfield is uniquely prepared to take the helm during the most challenging time of The Children’s Inn’s 30-year history.
Her volunteer activities at The Children’s Inn include serving as chair of the An Evening for Hope gala, which raises more than $1 million each year, planning and executing The Inn’s first golf tournament in 2008, which has been raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for The Inn since, and engaging Booz Allen leadership and staff in regularly serving meals and coordinating holiday festivities for Children’s Inn families. Thanks to Penfield, Booz Allen has become an invaluable Children’s Inn partner, providing a wide range of pro-bono consulting services to enhance knowledge management, conduct a building assessment, create a customized resident management software solution essential to The Inn’s daily operations and more.
“The Inn changes the world by changing the lives of each beautiful child and family it touches. There’s no greater honor than being a part of those stories,” said Penfield. “My goal as chair is to help the Inn navigate the pandemic with resiliency and come out of the other side stronger than ever.”
As Booz Allen’s chief innovation officer, Penfield’s charge is to advance the firm’s innovation journey by building next generation capabilities and products, scouting for emerging tech trends, galvanizing a robust culture of innovation and advancing innovative partnerships with the broader innovation ecosystem.
Penfield’s passion for healthcare advancement is reflected in her career success as well as her philanthropy. She has transformed numerous business units across her 26-year tenure at Booz Allen, including the firm’s digital and health businesses. Under her leadership, Booz Allen’s health business became the firm’s largest and fastest growing account, providing transformational consulting and technology services for every major federal health-related organization in the U.S., including the National Institutes of Health National Children’s Study, the National Plan to Combat Alzheimer’s Disease, the transformation of the Centers for Disease Control’s Vaccine for Children program, and the implementation of large-scale technology transformation programs in support of the Food and Drug Administration’s pharmacovigilance, food safety and other regulatory programs.
Penfield has won multiple awards and has been recognized for being one of the most influential government consulting figures. In May 2020, Penfield received the Washington Executive Lifetime Achievement Award for her pioneering work driving technology innovation in government and her commitment to cultivating the next generation of women in STEM. She was named one of Elle Magazine’s 2020 Most Powerful Women in Tech who are transforming the industry, and Washington Exec’s 2019 Top 25 Executives to Watch. Susan is a four-time recipient of the Wash100 award that recognizes the most influential leaders in the government consulting sector.
In addition to The Children’s Inn, Penfield also serves as board chair of the globally recognized social good incubator, SEED SPOT, and has guided the organization on its growth journey with a focus on empowering change agents as a force for good. Penfield is a passionate advocate for the recruitment, retention and the advancement of women in technology and speaks routinely on STEM-related topics.
Penfield holds a certificate in management from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Business and a bachelor’s degree in technology management from Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania.
She and her husband, Brian, live in Laytonsville, Maryland, with their dog, Rosie.
About The Children’s Inn:
The Children’s Inn at the National Institutes of Health is a nonprofit dedicated to providing a “place like home” free of charge to children and young adults with rare and serious diseases, and their families, while they participate in NIH clinical research studies. Located on the NIH campus across from the NIH Clinical Center—the world’s largest hospital dedicated solely to clinical research—The Children’s Inn provides free lodging, meals, recreational, educational and therapeutic services to more than 1,500 children and their families from across the United States and the world every year.
This year, The Children’s Inn celebrates 30 years of being “INN it” for making childhood possible and advancing medical breakthroughs for a brighter tomorrow. For more information about The Children’s Inn, visit childrensinn.org.
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