Printable Biography of Marguerite Kondracke

---

 Prior to joining America’s Promise, Ms. Kondracke 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 was education, health care, social welfare, and the challenges of working families, especially military families.

During her 40-year career, Ms. 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 childcare, and she took the company public in 1997 (NASDAQ: BFAM). Ms. Kondracke retired as CEO of the company, now called Bright Horizons Family Solutions, in 1999, and recently rejoined the board. The company is a $1 billion enterprise employing more than 20,000 people and serving over 600 corporate clients at over 700 childcare 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.

Ms. Kondracke has received numerous awards and honors. She was named a Purpose Prize Fellow, awarded by Civic Ventures to those over 60 taking on society's biggest challenges, and 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. She served for ten years as a member of the board and for three years as chair of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA). Today she is a member of the board of directors of Saks, Inc. (NYSE: SKS) 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 board of The Future of Children for Princeton University and Brookings Institution.