Carly Fiornia founded Unlocking Potential (UP) to build the leadership capacity of non-profit organizations and their teams by providing those leaders with the tools and resources to strengthen their problem-solving skills. She believes leadership is problem-solving and wants to help build non-profit leaders – on your teams and in your communities. UP offers capacity-building services to grantmakers, non-profit leaders, and individuals.
Carly’s experience spans from secretary to CEO, public to private, and for-profit to non-profit. She started as a secretary for a nine-person real-estate business and eventually became the first woman to lead a Fortune 50 company. When Carly was recruited to lead Hewlett Packard (HP) in 1999, the industry was facing the worst technology recession in 25 years. Under Carly’s leadership, revenue grew, innovation tripled, growth quadrupled, and HP became the 11th largest company in the U.S.
After leaving HP, Carly focused her efforts on giving back. Before Unlocking Potential, she served as the Chairman of Good360, the world’s largest product philanthropy organization, and as Chairman of Opportunity International, a Christian-based organization that lifts millions out of poverty around the globe through micro-finance. She also founded the One Woman Initiative in partnership with Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, to engage and empower women through increased access to economic opportunity in Pakistan, Egypt, India, and the Philippines.
Now, Carly is leveraging her expertise with a team of highly-skilled professionals passionate about empowering people in the non-profit sector with the knowledge and tools to succeed. The project’s curriculum is built on Carly’s experience developing leaders in every context and based on her philosophy that
- leaders are made, not born
- everyone can be a leader
- the people closest to the problem are best positioned to solve it
Unlocking Potential is a fiscally sponsored project of CORE Foundation Inc, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, EIN 20-5997764.