Linda Tarr-Whelan

Former Ambassador Linda Tarr-Whelan is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos.  The author of the award-winning Women Lead the Way: Your Guide to Stepping up to Leadership and Changing the World (Berrett-Koehler, 2009, 2011), Linda was Ambassador to the UN Commission on the Status of Women in the Clinton Administration and Deputy Assistant to President Jimmy Carter for Women’s Concerns in the White House. She is a founder of Demos and until 2011 headed the Women’s Leadership Initiative.

Named one of the 50 most powerful women in Washington by Ladies Home Journal, her national and international work on the importance of gender-balanced leadership has included serving as Policy Director for AFSCME, Chief Lobbyist for the National Education Association, President of the Center for Policy Alternatives, and Managing Partner of Tarr-Whelan & Associates, Inc, an international management consultancy. She chairs the Pax World Resources Women’s Advisory Council and is a member of the Women’s Leadership Council of United Way Worldwide, and works with organizations implementing the 30% Solution to create balanced leadership including the United Nations and the Forum on Education Abroad. 

She holds a BSN from Johns Hopkins, an MS from the University of Maryland, and honorary PhDs from Chatham and Plymouth State Universities. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.  Linda and her husband Keith Tarr-Whelan live in St. Helena Island, SC and Burlington, VT.  They have two adult children and four grandchildren.