Ann Fudge is the former chairman and CEO of Young & Rubicam Brands, a global network of marketing communications companies. Prior to that, Fudge served as president of the Beverages, Desserts, and Post Division, a $5 billion unit of Kraft Foods. Before joining General Foods, she spent nine years at General Mills. She serves as chair of the U.S. Programs Advisory Board of the Gates Foundation and as a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation, the Brookings Institution, and the Council on Foreign Relations, in addition to serving as a member of the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board. Fudge is also on the boards of General Electric, Novartis, Unilever, and Infosys, in addition to serving on the Harvard Corporation Finance Committee and on the board of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

A committed philanthropist focused on education and youth, Fudge has served as a trustee at Morehouse College and on the boards of the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, Harvard Overseers, and Simmons College.

The former President of the Executive Leadership Council, Fudge was honored in 2005 with the establishment of the Ann Fudge Scholars program, which to date has supported the education of 21 young women. She helped establish the H. Naylor Fitzhugh Chair at HBS, and she and her husband have also set up scholarships at Bowdoin College and Simmons College.

Fudge has two sons and five grandchildren and lives in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.