Jo Ann Jenkins’s Required Reading

strategy+business, June 22, 2016

by Theodore Kinni

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Jo Ann Jenkins is an enthusiastic reader: Until 2010, she was the chief operating officer of the Library of Congress. With a staff of 4,000, a budget of more than US$1 billion, and 838 miles of bookshelves, it is the largest library in the world.

Jenkins left that position for another massive organization, AARP. Formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons, AARP is one of the world’s largest nonprofits, with nearly 38 million members. Initially, Jenkins served as president of AARP Foundation, where she led that organization’s development and social impact initiatives, including Drive to End Hunger, and increased the foundation’s donor base by 90 percent in two years. In 2014, she was named the first permanent female CEO of AARP.

Jenkins put AARP’s large and influential platform to good use from the get-go. In her first statement as CEO, she declared her intention to redefine outdated stereotypes about health, wealth, and self-fulfillment image in old age.

Jenkins has detailed her ideas in a new book, Disrupt Aging: A Bold Path to Living Your Best Life at Every Age (PublicAffairs, 2016). Disrupt Aging reminds us that almost one-third of the U.S. workforce is now composed of people age 65 and older, and offers a host of ideas for capitalizing on the life and work experience they bring to the job. After reading it, I asked Jenkins to share a few books that have influenced her career and thinking. Read the rest here