Flinn Foundation Names Tammy McLeod New President and CEO

PHOENIX–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#Arizona–Following a national search, the Flinn Foundation board of directors has
chosen one of Arizona’s most broadly accomplished executives and
community leaders as its new president and chief executive officer.

Tammy McLeod, currently the vice president for energy resource
management at Arizona Public Service, will succeed retiring President
and CEO Jack B. Jewett. McLeod will begin her new position in October.

Over nearly 23 years at Arizona’s largest public utility, McLeod has
held several positions with rapidly increasing operational
responsibility, culminating in a role where she oversees three company
divisions: Energy Marketing and Trading Operations, 20-Year Energy
Resource Planning, and Utility-Owned Solar.

Meanwhile, McLeod is engaged in leadership across Arizona’s nonprofit
community, presently serving on the boards of directors for such
organizations as the Arizona Community Foundation; the Desert Botanical
Garden (vice president); Expect More Arizona (chair); Greater Phoenix
Economic Council (vice chair); and in an advisory capacity at the Kyl
Center for Water Policy at the Morrison Institute at Arizona State
University. Since 2013, she has also been a member of Arizona’s
Bioscience Roadmap Steering Committee, launched in 2002 by the Flinn
Foundation to unite Arizona leaders in advancing the state’s
bioscience sector.

“Robert and Irene Flinn established the Flinn Foundation from the
conviction that it was not enough to exercise leadership in one’s narrow
professional domain,” said Dr. David J. Gullen, chair of the
foundation’s board of directors. “They felt called to serve Arizona in a
deeper and longer-lasting way. One glance at Tammy’s distinguished
record in corporate and nonprofit settings illustrates that she is
supremely suited to extend Dr. and Mrs. Flinn’s legacy.”

Through mentorship to budding entrepreneurs, frequent public speaking
and advocacy, and service on innumerable project leadership teams,
McLeod has made the formation and strengthening of community a
centerpiece of her professional and civic life. Earlier in her years at
APS, she served as the company’s first chief customer officer, earning
national accolades for new strategies to engage with customers and match
company initiatives with economic-development needs in regions APS
served, especially around entrepreneurship. She also refocused the APS
Foundation, the company’s philanthropic arm, on customer and community
needs.

Such priorities were forecast in McLeod’s MBA studies at the Wharton
School at the University of Pennsylvania, where she concentrated on the
creation of entrepreneurial ecosystems and placemaking. That emphasis
aligns with the Flinn Foundation’s mission: improving the quality of
life in Arizona, to benefit future generations.

“The Flinn Foundation’s four program areas embody a pragmatic but deeply
optimistic strategic vision,” McLeod said. “A dynamic and globally
competitive bioscience sector, a community rich in arts and culture,
public universities with hubs of world-class undergraduate talent, a
growing pool of effective state-level civic leaders—these are
cornerstones of the Arizona that should be and can be.”

McLeod will assume leadership of the Flinn Foundation after a period of
significant programmatic growth. During Jewett’s eight-year tenure as
president and CEO, the foundation broadened its focus with the creation
of the Arizona Center for Civic Leadership, renewed its commitment to
the biosciences with new grant initiatives and an update of Arizona’s
Bioscience Roadmap, launched a grant program to support the financial
and creative health of Arizona’s largest arts-and-culture organizations,
and expanded the opportunities available through the Flinn Scholarship.

“The Flinn Foundation in the Jack Jewett years has demonstrated how
carefully targeted philanthropy can have an outsized positive impact on
the life of a state,” McLeod said. “I am honored to sustain this work,
and, in partnership with the board, explore how we can become an even
greater force for good.”

The foundation began the search for its new leader last winter, soon
after Jewett publicly announced his plans to retire. An international
executive search firm was retained and worked closely with a search
committee comprised of members of the foundation’s board of directors,
chaired by Gullen.

The Flinn Foundation is a Phoenix-based, private, nonprofit
philanthropic endowment. It was established by Dr. and Mrs. Robert S.
Flinn in 1965 with the mission of improving the quality of life in
Arizona. The philanthropy supports the advancement of Arizona’s
bioscience sector, arts and culture, the Flinn Scholars Program, and the
Arizona Center for Civic Leadership.

Additional information about the Flinn Foundation is available at www.flinn.org.

Contacts

Flinn Foundation
Matt Ellsworth, 602-744-6813
[email protected]
cell:
480-438-7608
or
Brian Powell, 602-744-6806
[email protected]