Whitney Herrington is a human resources and operations executive, three-time founder, and C-suite leader with more than 15 years building the people and operating infrastructure of mission-driven institutions. She is the founder of Avren, which turns lived experience into structured, attorney-ready documentation, at scale. Throughout her career she has led human resources, technology, finance, and administration at some of the most significant civil rights and social justice organizations in the United States. Across those roles and her own consulting practices, she has been the person on the receiving end of thousands of complex employment matters—and what she saw repeatedly was that whether an account could be acted on came down less to what happened than to whether the person could produce an organized record of it. Avren is the infrastructure for producing one.
In her HR and management consulting firm, Ascend People, she has grown revenue more than 25% year over year to seven figures, and scaled its services across more than 250 nonprofit organizations. Previously, as Partner and People Practice Leader at NPAG, Whitney built the firm's first human resources and organizational effectiveness practice, served as engagement partner to executive teams and boards of directors, and designed and led a scaled virtual recruitment program for 20 Chan Zuckerberg Initiative grantees.
As Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights—the oldest civil rights advocacy organization in the United States and a coalition of more than 200 civil and human rights organizations—Whitney served as an officer of the organization and a member of its senior leadership team, with responsibility for operations across both the (c)(3) and (c)(4) entities. As a corporate officer of the organization she aligned $25 million in annual budgets to mission objectives, led the team, and carried legal, compliance, and fiduciary responsibility. She served as primary liaison to the board of directors and partnered with the President and CEO to identify and engage institutional and corporate funders to solicit six- and seven-figure gifts. While there she also co-founded the first COO roundtable of social justice organizations, which convenes more than 75 operations and human resources leaders across the sector.
At the Southern Poverty Law Center, a $100 million social justice and advocacy organization, Whitney served as Director of Human Resources and then Director of People and Technology, leading a team of professionals across HR and IT. As a member of the Center's senior leadership team she partnered with the President and CEO and program directors on strategic planning, workforce planning, program expansion, and organizational growth, and rebuilt talent acquisition to support fair and equitable high-volume hiring.
Throughout her career Whitney’s passion for equity and human resources has impacted thousands of people. In addition to building Avren, Whitney shares her insights on workplace power and HR practice on HR Uncensored, where she’s reached more than 5 million people.