Elizabeth Reilinger is a seasoned, successful leader, with experience advancing innovation, leadership, organizational sustainability and performance. She founded LeadWell Partners to work in partnership with clients to help them enhance the critical ingredients essential for success. Through coaching and by serving as a strategic thought partner, Dr. Reilinger works with leaders to address uncertainty and the unknown, to develop renewed purpose, resiliency and resolution, to refine their leadership voice, and to strengthen their organizational capacity to advance successful results for themselves and their organizations.
Prior to founding LeadWell Partners, Dr. Reilinger served as CEO of one of the nation's oldest nonprofit organizations, leading it through a major turnaround, expansion and engineering a successful merger with another institution. As faculty and researcher at Cornell University, she directed numerous studies and evaluations of national social policy initiatives, advised federal and state legislative and executive branches, and provided technical assistance around program development, management and evaluation. She has served as a Dean at Boston University and on the faculty of Tufts University, Ithaca College and the State University of New York.
From 1996 to 2008, she chaired the Boston School Committee, driving the agenda for urban education reform. Under her leadership, the Boston School District won national acclaim for its documented improvements in student achievement, including the 2006 national Broad Award and the 2004 inaugural CUBE Award for outstanding school board governance practices. In 2007, Dr. Reilinger received the Richard R. Green Award, the nation's highest honor for leadership in urban education. Dr. Reilinger has served on the boards of numerous nonprofit organizations, institutions of higher education and emerging businesses. She has been the recipient of many awards for fundraising acuity, for governance, and for management leadership. The Boston Business Journal recognized her “. . . as an example of a new breed of nonprofit chief: tough, bottom-line smart, and management trained." Dr. Reilinger received her Ph.D. from Cornell University.