We’re pleased to welcome Jennifer Fulton Anderson as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer of your Community Foundation.
Jennifer has more than 20 years’ experience in community and investment banking. She’s also fluent in Spanish, and holds dual citizenship in the United States and the United Kingdom. Learn more about Jennifer’s professional background.
We sat down with Jennifer, recently, to get to know her better on a personal level:
Community Foundation: Who inspires you? And why?
Jennifer: My first thought is of a dear friend and yoga teacher, Nubia Teixeira, who is the most open-hearted and loving person that I have ever met. She inspires me to love more, accept more, and judge less.
In terms of public figures I am inspired by – and so grateful for – Oprah Winfrey. I see her as a disrupter, using traditional mass media communication channels – print magazines, cable television, podcasts – to deliver goodness and positivity into this world. I’ve not thought of it this way until this moment, but she has married her innate talents and business acumen with her passion for service – this is the opportunity that Community Foundation Boulder County is giving me, which I’ve long, well, longed for.
CF: Who would you most like to swap places with for a day?
JFA: Maybe my “worst enemy” to get a better understanding of their perspective and hence deepen my compassion.
Otherwise, Eckhart Tolle. I’d like to live a day through his eyes, experiencing the equanimity and acceptance of all that comes our way that he teaches. There was a time in my life when I found his perspective so…boring! And now I can’t get enough of it!
CF: What’s the last book you read?
JFA: Well, the very last book I read was Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes with my 4- and 5-year-old sons – one of their bedtime stories last night. It’s a fun book with catchy word phrasing and a great moral to “keep walking along and singing your song,” no matter what you step in!
For personal pleasure, I’m in the midst of Becoming by Michelle Obama. As a mother, a professional in a historically male-dominated field, a person who has lived for a time in life circumstances that I wouldn’t have chosen for the sake of my family and the greater good – I relate. And then, on the aspects which I have had the privilege to not experience personally, like racism, I’m taking notes to try to expand my understanding.
CF: If you could visit anywhere in the world you’ve never been, where would you go?
JFA: I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have traveled much of the world by virtue of my job as an investment banker, and having had the great travel hub of London as my hometown for eight years. I loved those experiences so much – yet, these days, I am so content to be at home in Boulder with my family. My husband and I often talk about how we live in a vacationland, so we don’t really need to travel! If I had to choose some place right now, I would pick Bali for its beaches and spirituality-infused daily life.
CF: What are your three favorite things about living in Boulder County?
JFA: Gosh, it’s hard to narrow to three…
- The wide availability of healthy, delicious food and COFFEE – my pleasure of choice in this life!
- The high level of interest in spirituality, consciousness, and making this world a better place among our county’s residents.
- Living in close proximity to so many beautiful wild animals. I love the deer that roam through our neighborhood, and nearly every night I peer down our road as I’m driving home looking for mountain lions – I’m not sure if I’m hoping to see one, or not see one!
I also just adore that our area has such a small town feel while offering metropolitan-level amenities, that we can ski at sweet Eldora just 40 minutes from our house, that Boulder County offers a plethora of kids’ amenities like amazing parks, bike paths, and music concerts at Chautauqua with Jeff & Paige. And I love the view of the Flatirons on my morning commute.
CF: What’s the best part, so far, of working at Community Foundation Boulder County?
JFA: Hands down, knowing that the work that I do has some small part in helping improve the lives of the residents of Boulder County. I am so grateful to be able to put to use for good the skills and education that I was fortunate enough to receive on Wall Street. Several times over my first couple of weeks at the foundation, I have been moved to tears by the plights described, but I have been heartened by being able to be a small part of effecting some kind of positive change.
CF: What’s your superpower?
JFA: I think one of my very strongest suits is something I like to call the “art and science of storytelling through PowerPoint,” i.e., taking a huge amount of data and information and distilling it into a narrative told through charts and bullet points – very specifically tailored to the audience at hand. I have done a lot of work with boards, and I especially enjoy helping executives identify the message they’d like to share with the board and how to most effectively and concisely do that.
