Jennifer Winstead, who for 10 years has served as president and CEO of the Pennington Biomedical Research Foundation, has announced she will step down from her position at the end of the year so she can spend more time with her family.
“It’s something that I’ve been thinking about a lot over the last few months,” she tells Daily Report. “My sons are teenagers, 16 and 13, and I can’t replace this time with them.”
Winstead says she feels she can go out “on a high note” after two of the foundation’s most successful years. In the last two years, it has raised more than $10 million.
The foundation board will conduct a national search to replace her. In the meantime, board chairman Jerry Jolly is working on a transition plan, details of which have not been announced.
Over the past two years, the foundation and the Pennington Biomedical Research Center it was created to support have become more aggressive and strategic—the former in its fundraising efforts, the latter in trying to create business opportunities from the basic research that comes out of the center. Last summer, Pennington named its first chief business development officer, David Winwood.
“Research centers across the country are facing the realities of limited national funding, changes in health care delivery and constrained state budgets,” executive director William Cefalu said at the time. “We must be proactive and strive to be at the forefront of innovation.” —Stephanie Riegel
