Connie Collingsworth is an experienced independent board member with expertise in governance, risk management, regulatory compliance, executive compensation, sustainability, and complex investments. She has served as a board member and strategic advisor for publicly traded and privately held companies, private equity and venture capital funds, and nonprofit corporations and trusts. Connie currently serves on the boards of Banner Corp., a publicly traded bank holding company with over $16 billion in assets, and Axxes Capital, a private market platform expanding access to private equity assets. She also serves as a board advisor to Planet First Partners, a $500 million European private equity fund; a business advisory board member of Ocugen, a publicly traded biotech company focused on novel cell therapies, biologics, and vaccines; and a strategic advisor to Loud Capital, a venture fund fueling innovations driving access to people-centered health care.

Connie also serves as an independent director of the National Philanthropic Trust, the largest nonprofit administrator of donor advised funds with over $40 billion of assets under management, and is an adjunct professor at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business, teaching the MBA course CEO and Board Leadership: Insider’s View of Corporate Governance.

Connie is the former chief operations officer and chief legal officer of the Gates Foundation, the world’s largest private family foundation with over $75 billion in assets and an annual budget of $9 billion.