Linda Ireland is famous for weaving disparate ideas, facts and questions into actionable possibilities that move people forward. 

Linda has been an entrepreneur, executive, consultant, investor, writer, speaker, volunteer, and board member, in a career crossing eight industries, a dozen functional executive roles, and deep collaborations in social mission organizations. Along the way she found a consistent power and purpose: help people envision an ideal future, and then reverse engineer the change necessary to achieve it.

Linda has been deeply engaged in not-for-profit and social justice work for 25 years. As an advisor, volunteer or board member Linda has advanced impact in the arts, education, youth development, health care, gender justice and human rights. She is currently a director on the boards of Gillette Children’s, World Savvy, Social Venture Partners Minnesota, CaringBridge and EquaSpace. She is an angel investor in women owned or led businesses.

In her corporate career Linda was co-founder of Aveus, a strategy and change firm now part of integrated health pioneer Medecision. She held executive positions at Wilsons Leather, Digital River, Genesis Direct, PaperDirect, Deluxe Corporation and a sole source supplier to 3M. 

Linda holds bachelor’s degrees in political science and industrial relations from the University of Minnesota. She holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, where she taught in the school’s MBA and Executive MBA programs for 15 years.

The optimist in Linda loves the kind of science fiction that demonstrates “we’ve figured out a few things by then,” which explains the small statue of Princess Leia on her desk. She is a traveler, and feels most alive when surrounded by stories, perspectives, and cultures different than her own.