Claire J. Fiddian-Green joined the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation as president and CEO in 2015. Under her leadership, the foundation’s initiatives have included the $15 million College Matters program, which is designed to help public high schools in Marion County boost college enrollment rates, including for their student populations with historically lower enrollment rates. She also has co-led an effort called iLab Indiana, which is designed to scale youth apprenticeship experiences statewide across multiple industry sectors in which there are large and growing talent gaps. Previously, Fiddian-Green served as special assistant for education innovation to Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and was co-founder of the Center for Education and Career Innovation.
Favorite gadget: “I love to read, so that would have to be my e-reader.”
Advice for a young person: “Focus on what you can control, work hard and always ask what else you can be doing to contribute to the organization, and make it a priority to build your network.”
Fred Glass heads the state’s largest food bank and one of the leading food banks in the Feeding America network. At Gleaners, he established the organization’s “North Star”: “We are not in the charitable food business, but rather we are in the poverty alleviation business, armed with food.” A prominent Indianapolis attorney, he also served as chief of staff to Indiana Gov. Evan Bayh. As president of the Capital Improvement Board, he led negotiations to keep the Colts in Indianapolis, developed Lucas Oil Stadium, and expanded the Indiana Convention Center. He was vice president and athletic director for his alma mater, Indiana University, from 2009 to 2020.
Lesson learned: Taking the players’ names off the backs of the jerseys at IU. “I learned from the backlash that more people than I ever guessed used the names to identify players. I reversed course the next year and learned that you need to be willing to change your mind—even if it’s a bit publicly embarrassing.”
Darrianne Christian, who became the first Black woman to chair the Newfields board of trustees in May 2021, faced new challenges related to the abrupt departure of the organization’s CEO late last year. Christian was tasked with announcing the sudden departure of former Newfields CEO Colette Pierce Burnette, which received a large amount of community pushback. Six board members stepped down before and after the announcement of Burnette’s departure. The board, led by Christian, is now searching for a new leader for Indianapolis’ most prominent arts organization. Christian started her career with the Central Intelligence Agency after being recruited into the Stokes Scholar program while still a high school student. She spent the remainder of her career working in information technology as a program manager and consultant before leaving the workforce to care for her children. She currently serves on the boards of Lake City Bank and the Eskenazi Health Foundation. She has been a member of the Newfields board since 2016.
Jennett Hill was elected to the board of Lilly Endowment Inc.—a private foundation supporting community development, education and religion—in 2015. Seven years later, she was elected president. Previously, she served as senior vice president and general counsel for Citizens Energy Group. She currently serves as on the board of the Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation and the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce. A former partner of the law firm of Faegre Baker Daniels LLP (now Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath), she specialized in tax-exempt and nonprofit law.
Early job: Cleaning the stairwell in the three-story apartment building where her family lived on a military base in Berlin, Germany. “It taught me responsibility, the value of hard work and the importance of delivering good customer service.”
Pets: A miniature schnoodle puppy, Elsa, “whose antics generate a level of joy and laughter that rivals most popular sitcoms.”
Katie Jenner leads the Indiana Department of Education and chairs the State Board of Education, overseeing a budget of more than $10 billion, more than 2,200 schools, 1.13 million students and 80,000-plus teachers and administrators. She has secured a $170 million investment in literacy, allowing the department to deploy solutions aimed at achieving Indiana’s goal of 95% of third-graders reading at grade level by 2027. Under her leadership, the state is rethinking high school, focusing on increasing flexibility in diploma requirements while maintaining rigor, increasing access to high-quality work-based learning, and increasing access to credentials of value before graduation.
First job: Summer swim instructor “was really my first ‘teaching’ role. … While being a lifeguard involved being around friends and getting a good suntan, it also involved cleaning all of the public bathrooms. With every job, there is good that is seen by all, but there is also the roll-up your sleeves and cleaning up the messes kind of work too.”
Walk-up song: “Thunder,” by Imagine Dragons
Bill Hanna has been executive director of the Merrillville-based Dean and Barbara White Family Foundation for 3-1/2 years. Hanna was the first person to officially hold that role and was tasked with working with the White Family and foundation trustees to further solidify the not-for-profit’s strategic priorities. The not-for-profit works with partners to transform northwestern Indiana communities by enhancing quality of life, promoting health and wellness, stimulating economic development and increasing access to higher education. From 2009-2021, Hanna was president and CEO of the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority. During his tenure, the RDA facilitated more than $2.4 billion in new investment in infrastructure. He also served as city manager, deputy mayor and economic development director for Valparaiso. He serves on several state commissions. And he served in the U.S. Army as an airborne qualified light infantryman from 1995 to 1999, during which his service included membership in the presidential escort.
After serving as President and CEO of Rdoor Housing Corp. for three years and for decades in affordable housing, Bruce Baird has made plans this summer to step down from the organization and retire. Rdoor, founded in 1987 as Merchants Affordable Housing Corp., is one of Indiana’s largest not-for-profit affordable housing providers. Baird expanded Rdoor’s affordable housing portfolio to more than 3,000 units across 24 unique properties in Indianapolis, Gary and South Bend. He also developed enhanced asset management programs for RDOOR’s communities. He previously served as executive director of Renew Indianapolis and as the president of Insight Development, the real estate development arm of the Indianapolis Housing Agency. Prior to Insight, Baird worked in leadership positions for the city of Indianapolis, the Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership and Eastside Community Investments.
Laura Berry is executive director of the Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence and a nationally recognized expert in domestic violence. Her work includes overseeing and coordinating statewide training and technical assistance for all domestic violence programs in Indiana. In the last biennial budget, she helped increase statewide funding for domestic violence services from $6 million to $9 million, and she received $2.5 million in funding from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to implement health equity strategies to prevent domestic violence and evaluate Indiana’s paid-leave policy. She was a 2023 IBJ Woman of Influence.
Something surprising: “I share a birthday with D-Day: 6/6/66 [same day, different year]. As you can imagine, my identification gets a second glance and you know my age, but my birthday has driven my interest in history and the history of cemeteries.”
Advice for a young person: “Listen and learn: It makes you a stronger and a better leader.”
Pet: Koda, a Great Pyrenees, adopted from the Humane Society five years ago
Mung Chiang became the 13th president of Purdue University on Jan. 1, 2023. As president, he works to further the university’s land-grant mission and values, while creating talent, jobs and innovation along America’s hard tech corridor. His goal is “to help Boilermaker students, faculty, staff and alumni take small steps that turn into giant leaps in the discovery and dissemination of knowledge.” Chiang is also the Roscoe H. George Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and currently serves on the inaugural board of the U.S. Foundation for Energy Security and Innovation and several corporate and not-for-profit boards. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2024, in mathematical and physical sciences. Previously, he was professor of electrical engineering at Princeton University, where he founded the Princeton EDGE Lab in 2009 and several startups and industry consortia in edge computing.
Something surprising: “I like ice cream.”
Advice for a young person: Work harder.
Worries about: student safety
Angela B. Freeman is a partner at Barnes & Thornburg LLP where she specializes in intellectual property and patents and works in the agriculture and food, life sciences and renewal energy sectors. She is one of the few diverse women working in patent law in the country and only the second African American woman to become a capital partner at Barnes & Thornburg. Since 2021, Freeman has hosted The Freedom Forum with Angela B. Freeman, an IBJ podcast focused on diversity and equity issues in business. She previously worked as a biologist at Eli Lilly and Co.
Something surprising: “I skipped first grade. … Growing up in a small town in Kentucky, I went to church kindergarten and that allowed me to be able to go straight to 2nd grade when I went to elementary school. This also meant that I went to college when I was 16 years old.”
Leadership lesson: “Leading is hard. Leading takes time. Leading means caring about the greater good more than your personal or professional benefit. Leading is seeing the greater wins despite minor and temporary setbacks.”
