Benaree Pratt Wiley (Bennie) is Principal of The Wiley Group, a firm specializing in strategy, talent management, and leadership development. For fifteen years, Bennie was president and CEO of The Partnership, Inc., an organization that strengthened Greater Boston’s capacity to attract, retain, and develop talented professionals of color.

Bennie’s experiences as a management consultant and entrepreneur were instrumental to building The Partnership into a sustainable and influential social enterprise. A graduate of Howard University (BA) and Harvard Business School (MBA), she served as a consultant with such corporations as Abt Associates, Contract Research Corporation, and Urban Systems Research and Engineering. As an independent consultant, she worked with nonprofit organizations to build their capacity and refine their program delivery. She then combined her interests in business and child development through the establishment of a high-end toy store, Giocatolli, on Martha’s Vineyard.

Bennie is currently a director on boards of the Dreyfus Mutual Funds, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, and CBIZ (NYSE). Her civic activities include serving on the boards of The Boston Foundation, Howard University, Dress for Success Boston, and the Efficacy Institute. She is a frequent speaker on leadership, diversity, and professional development and has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors including honorary doctorates from Boston College, New England School of Law, and Newbury College; the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce’s Pinnacle Award for Lifetime Achievement; and Harvard Business School’s Distinguished Alumni Award from the African American Student Union.

Bennie has also had the honor of being featured on the cover of Boston magazine as one of Boston’s most powerful women, in addition to being inducted into the Academy of Distinguished Bostonians. She is the subject of a Harvard Business School case, “Bennie Wiley and The Partnership.” Bennie is married and has two adult children. Her daughter, B.J., is a 2006 HBS graduate, making them the first African American mother-daughter graduates of HBS.