NANCY BEKAVAC VENLY & PEAKE FELLOWSHIP DEVELOPMENT TEAM FOUNDING PARTNER & CO-CHAIR OF TRAINING

Nancy Bekavac served 17 years as the first female president of Scripps College, one of the five Claremont Colleges in California. During her tenure, the Scripps’ student applicant pool doubled, median SAT scores of the incoming students increased almost 20 percent, and the endowment quadrupled. President Bekavac’s passion for Venly’s mission with small & local businesses emerges from her experience growing up in a family that owned a small business. Upon graduation from Swarthmore College, she was selected for a year of international field study as one of the first Thomas J. Watson Fellows, named in honor of IBM’s founder. After completing her JD degree at Yale Law School and becoming partner at Munger, Tolles & Olsen, she returned to education. First, she ran the Thomas Watson Fellowship as Executive Director, selecting each of the Fellows for two years. Then, she served another two years as Counselor to the President of Dartmouth College before going to Scripps. She also served on the Swarthmore College Board of Managers and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Most recently, she taught aboard the University of Virginia’s Semester at Sea.