Jennifer Lawson, CEO of Keep America Beautiful

Jennifer Lawson is President and CEO of Keep America Beautiful, a national nonprofit that works to inspire and educate people to improve and beautify their community environment. Previously, Jenny served as Chief Civic Innovation Officer at Points of Light where she led programs to help companies achieve their social change goals through the actions of their employees. She was also the executive sponsor of Listen. Learn. Act to End Racism, Points of Light’s partnership with Morehouse College, and served as an advisor to the National Trust for Civic Infrastructure. Jenny came to Points of Light from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change (now C2ES), where she led Make an Impact, a global campaign focused on energy efficiency and environmental awareness with some of the nation’s largest companies. Her career began with community development and affordable housing advocacy in Northern Virginia, where she served as the founding Executive Director of the Alliance for Housing Solutions. Jenny graduated from the University of Virginia where she studied Philosophy and Mathematics.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
M and T Bank presents CEOs you Should Know, powered
by iHeart EIGHTI.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Let's meet Jenny Lawson. She is the president and CEO
for Keep America Beautiful, a national nonprofit organization founded in
nineteen fifty three that aims to inspire and educate people
to take action to improve and beautify the communities by
addressing issues like littering, recycling, and community beautification. Here's Jenny

(00:28):
with more on how everyone can help.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
The people also think that accomplishing something in their community,
like getting out and beautifying a local park, sounds like
a refreshing break. The data says eighty percent respondents thought
that this was a true statement. So there is noise,
but there's also a solution, and so it's how do
we get our solution out there? How do we say
go volunteer, get involved locally, whether it's picking up litter

(00:54):
or cleaning up a part, planning some trees, those things
can help you and they can help your community. It's
very high level.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
You can hear the whole conversation at this station's website.
Slash CEO. Our community partner, M and T Bank supports
CEOs you Should Know as part of their ongoing commitment
to building strong communities, and that starts by backing the
businesses within them. As a Bank for communities, m and
T believes in dedicating time, talent, and resources to help

(01:21):
local businesses thrive because when businesses succeed, our communities succeed