Drexel Names Penn Mutual Chairman and CEO Eileen C. McDonnell 2016 Business Leader of the Year
Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business has named Penn Mutual Chairman and CEO Eileen C. McDonnell as its 2016 Business Leader of the Year. McDonnell will be honored at a luncheon celebrating her achievements on Tuesday, April 5.
McDonnell has been chairman and CEO of The Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company since July 2013. She joined the company as chief marketing officer in 2008.
Before joining Penn Mutual, she was president of New England Financial, a wholly owned subsidiary of MetLife, and senior vice president of the Guardian Life Insurance Company. McDonnell is a former member of the Master of Science in Management faculty at The American College in Bryn Mawr, Pa., where she held the newly endowed chair for Women and Financial Services and is the author of “Marketing Financial Services to Women.”
McDonnell was named one of the “Forty Under Forty” executives on the rise in 2002 by Crain’s New York Business magazine. In 2015, Forbes wrote an article about her career successes and her belief that a glass ceiling for women does not exist. “I’m a firm believer that if any person empowers themselves — women in particular — you take control of your own destiny,” she said in the Forbes interview.
A graduate of Molloy College, McDonnell majored in mathematics and computer science, and received an honorary doctor of laws (LL.D.) degree in 2011. She also holds an MBA in finance and investments from Adelphi University.
“As the 18th CEO of one of the oldest companies in the Philadelphia area, Eileen is a business leader who is well deserving of this recognition,” said Frank Linnehan, PhD, dean of LeBow College of Business. “We are very pleased to be adding her name to our list of Business Leader of the Year honorees.”
Drexel’s LeBow College of Business has named a Business Leader of the Year annually since 1954. Recent award winners include media mogul and philanthropist H. F. “Gerry” Lenfest; real estate investment guru Ira M. Lubert, co-founder of Independent Capital Partners; and Al West, founding CEO of SEI Investments Co.
The 2016 Business Leader of the Year luncheon honoring McDonnell will take place on April 5 from noon to 1:30 p.m. at the Hyatt at The Bellevue.
