Carol Thompson Cole is President & CEO of Venture Philanthropy Partners (VPP), a philanthropic investment organization that helps great leaders build strong, high-performing nonprofit institutions.
Cole brings to VPP over twenty years of management experience in the public and private sectors, as well as a strong history of leadership in the National Capital Region's nonprofit community and local government. She is a member of the Federal City Council; the Greater Washington Advisory Board of SunTrust; the Board of Trustees of Wesley Theological Seminary and the Summit Fund; and is a Lifetime Trustee of the Urban Institute. Her past board roles include serving as founder and Chair of the Board of Directors of the DC Agenda Support Corporation, and as a Trustee of Smith College and Trinity College.
She served as Special Advisor to President Clinton on the District of Columbia and Executive Director of the DC Inter-Agency Task Force, Executive Office of the President, where she was "point person" to the President on the District. In this position, she played a key role in developing ways the federal government could assist Washington, DC achieve and sustain financial stability, reliable services, and economic growth. She worked closely with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget and other senior Administration officials.
Prior to serving in the Clinton administration, Cole was the Vice President for Government and Environmental Affairs at RJR Nabisco, where she developed a corporate-wide environmental program that ensured that all business activities were carried out in an environmentally responsible manner and in compliance with federal, state, and local standards; served as corporate spokesperson on environmental issues; and functioned as a Washington representative monitoring public policy issues.
She spent twelve years in the government of the District of Columbia holding major management and staff positions, most notably as the first woman (and, at the time, the youngest person) to be appointed City Administrator. She also served as Deputy Mayor for Operations, Deputy Mayor for Economic Development, Chief of Staff, Executive Office of the Mayor, Director, Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, Acting Director, Department of Licenses, Investigations, and Inspections, Special Assistant to the City Administrator for Regulatory Affairs, Special Assistant to the Director, Department of Housing and Community Development, and State Historic Preservation Officer.
Cole earned a BA from Smith College and a master's in public administration with a concentration in urban public policy studies from the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service, New York University. She also attended the Senior Executives in State and Local Government Program at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.