Glennifer Gillespie

Glennifer Gillespie is a Dialogos Senior Associate. She divides her time between the United States and South Africa, where until 1995 she worked for the Independent Development Trust and was responsible for managing a national community school-building initiative during the transition from the apartheid era to democracy. During this time of tumultuous change for the country, she also set up and ran the “1000 Schools Project,” which employed a whole system collaborative approach, engaging partnerships among non-profits, provincial governments, teacher unions, parent organizations, churches, the private sector, and other educational stakeholders in an effort to improve the quality of education in one thousand of the most disadvantaged schools in South Africa.

Glennifer teaches, coaches and consults, and currently focuses much of her energy on the design and implementation of mentoring programs for young women leaders, funded by the Fetzer Institute, in both South Africa and the U.S.A. She currently serves as coaching faculty for the LCI and, with Beth Jandernoa, co-leads the Leadership for Collective Learning and Action course for cross-organizational learning, which is run annually in Cape Town.

Glennifer's wide-ranging work has included secondary school teaching, journalism, and directing women's programs in a non-profit organization. She holds a Master's degree in English from the University of Minnesota and a post-graduate degree in Educational Development from the University of Cape Town. Originally from South Africa, she has two adult children and lives in Ashland, Oregon.