Jenny Dearborn

Early life and education

Dearborn was born in Marin, California and grew up in Davis, California. During primary and secondary school she was placed in special education due to undiagnosed dyslexia and ADHD.

At age 18 she received official diagnoses of those conditions along with mild OCD. She later became an advocate for children with learning disabilities in the American education system. She graduated from Davis High School in 1987, earned an associate degree from American River College in 1989, a BA in English from UC Berkeley in 1991, a Master of Education from Stanford in 1993, and an MBA in organization development in 2003.

Career

Dearborn's professional path started in a high school classroom, where she taught English and drama. She moved into the corporate world in 1995, spending two decades as a learning instructor at Hewlett-Packard. Subsequent roles included Chief Learning Architect at Sun Microsystems and Chief Learning Officer at SuccessFactors. After SAP bought SuccessFactors, CEO Bill McDermott named her their chief learning officer, putting her in charge of educational strategy for roughly 95,000 staff.

She designed the Leadership Excellence Acceleration Program, a year-long initiative for high-potential women. In 2015, she launched the consulting firm Actionable Analytics Group. That same year, her coaching methods earned a Prism Award, and her team was rated the world's top corporate learning department by eLearning Magazine.

Did You Know?

• She co-founded the Silicon Valley Apprenticeship Consortium.
• She has served on the board of TheatreWorksUSA.