Wendy Guillies

Wendy Guillies is a seasoned c-suite/senior executive with deep experience in strategy development, talent management, culture, marketing/communications, and board service.

In 2022, Guillies retired from a 22-year career at the $2.5 billion Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, where she served as president and chief executive officer for eight years. During her tenure, she oversaw the development and implementation of a new strategic plan, the incubation and launch of three nonprofit education organizations, a comprehensive capital access strategy for entrepreneurs, tremendous growth in the Foundation’s staff and operations, and the onboarding of eight new trustees.

Prior to becoming CEO, Guillies led marketing and communications efforts at the Foundation as vice president of communications. She played an instrumental role in the launch of Global Entrepreneurship Week (now Global Entrepreneurship Network) and led the promotion of countless other initiatives, including the Foundation’s reputation as a national and global thought leader in entrepreneurship research, policy, and programming.

Guillies joined the board of the Center for American Entrepreneurship in 2023. She also serves on the boards of Folience, a for-profit ESOP holding company that was named the national Employee-Owned Company of the Year in 2022; Saint Luke’s South Hospital; the Economic Club of Kansas City; and on the Advisory Committee and President’s Cabinet for Enterprise Bank & Trust’s KC Region. Previously she served on the Boards of Enterprise Bank & Trust in St. Louis and the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce. She was a member of The Generosity Commission in Washington DC from its inception in 2021 until her retirement from the Kauffman Foundation in 2022. Guillies also served on the Missouri Innovation and Entrepreneurship Steering Committee in 2021-22.

Guillies is a mentor with the Kansas City-based Helzberg Entrepreneurial Mentoring Program.

In 2022, she was selected as a “Master” representing the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as part of UNL’s prestigious Masters Week Program. She was selected to join the Women Who Mean Business program through the Kansas City Business Journal. The Business Journal also named her to the Kansas City Power 100 list for multiple years.