Laurene Powell
Cofounder and President of the Board
College Track
Laurene Powell is cofounder and president of the board of College Track, an after-school program providing comprehensive support to high school students who have the desire but lack the resources to attain higher education. College Track provides daily academic support, leadership training, community service, internship opportunities and extracurricular involvement. Since its inception in 1997, the organization has served over 350 students in East Palo Alto and Oakland. All College Track graduates have been accepted to college.
Prior to College Track, Ms. Powell co-founded Terravera, a natural foods company that manufactured and delivered organic products to over 300 retailers daily throughout Northern California. She also served on the board of directors of Achieva, an award-winning educational company that specialized in online tools to help students improve study skills and standardized test performance. Prior to business school, Ms. Powell worked for Merrill Lynch Asset Management and spent three years at Goldman, Sachs as a fixed income trading strategist.
Ms. Powell turned her attention to non-profit entrepreneurship, with a particular focus on education, women's human rights, and the arts. Currently, she serves on the board of Directors of the Global Fund for Women, KQED (PBS), EdVoice, New America Foundation, and Stanford Schools Corporation.
Ms. Powell holds a BA and a BSE from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
She lives in Palo Alto with her husband and three children.
