Cinny Kennard

Cinny Kennard is Executive Director of the Annenberg Foundation and is an award-winning broadcast journalist and non-profit executive. Currently, she leads one of the world’s top philanthropic organizations with oversight of all operations of the Foundation including Grantmaking, Communications, Finance and Investments, HR, and all Program and Project Initiatives. Cinny has also served as a correspondent for CBS News in Los Angeles, Moscow, and London and won the DuPont Columbia University Award for coverage of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Prior to joining the Annenberg Foundation, Cinny had a long career in executive management and was the Senior Vice President in charge of Programming at the Smithsonian Institution. In this role, she created partnerships with national and international partners for special educational and media initiatives; managed the programming relationships in the joint venture between the Smithsonian and Showtime/CBS known as the Smithsonian Networks; and brought President Obama for a first-ever interview on Smithsonian Channel. Before the Smithsonian, Cinny was the first Managing Director of National Public Radio’s West Coast Production Center – NPR West – in Culver City, with executive responsibility for operational and editorial oversight.

As a senior advisor to the Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands, she created the Sunnylands strategic plan and organized outreach to Washington, DC stakeholders including the White House, Capitol Hill leadership, and the State Department. Those efforts significantly contributed to bringing President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping to Sunnylands for the “Sunnylands Summit.”

Cinny co-founded the Carole Kneeland Project for Responsible Television Journalism, and the Walter Cronkite Awards and the Reliable Resources for Broadcast Political Coverage.; served on the DuPont Columbia University Jury; and is a longtime member of the Trusteeship of the International Women’s Forum.

Cinny is currently the Chairman of the Board of the USC Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy at the USC Price School.

Cinny is an accomplished author. She helped write Best of Both Worlds: Museums, Libraries, and Archives in a Digital Age by G. Wayne Clough, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; co-authored a piece for The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation; co-authored “Characteristics of War Coverage by Female Correspondents” in Media and Conflict in the 21st Century; and authored numerous articles for The Huffington Post. Cinny is currently writing a book on Females and Philanthropy.

As a senior fellow, Cinny spearheads CCLP’s Women and Communication Leadership initiative.

Contact Cinny at kennard@usc.edu or (213) 821-0060.