Exit Interview: Marie C. Wilson, President, the White House Project

Why she’s leaving: In January, Ms. Wilson, 70, turned over the reins of the group she founded a dozen years ago to Tiffany Dufu, the group’s vice president for development and administration. Ms. Wilson says she wants to give the next generation an opportunity to lead, especially since that is the goal of the White House Project. The organization works to advance women’s leadership roles in all fields, with an eye toward getting men and women represented evenly in civic and political leadership roles.

Biggest accomplishments: A training program the group conducts in five states has graduated 11,000 women, 90 percent of whom have gone on to take leadership roles in their communities. The first Hispanic woman to serve in the Minnesota State Legislature is among its success stories.

Biggest challenge: People in this country think women have parity in leadership roles, says Ms. Wilson. But research that her group published two years ago shows women represent no more than 18 percent of leaders in many fields, including business and politics. “People in America like to think of it as a fair country,” says Ms. Wilson. “You have to keep going out and telling people the bad news.”

Background: After building the women’s programs division at Drake University, in Des Moines, and then serving as city councilmember there, Ms. Wilson left in 1984 to lead the Ms. Foundation for Women, in New York.

Salary: $189,000

Group’s budget: $2.6-million

What’s next: Ms. Wilson says she’ll work on several projects, including helping to start an institute on gender intelligence (which will examine how men’s and women’s brains work differently, among other issues), writing a book, and helping to promote The Loving Story, a documentary about the Supreme Court case that made it legal to marry a person of another race.

Woman she most admires: Susan V. Berresford, former president of the Ford Foundation. “She’s a mentor, a sponsor, and a courageous woman,” says Ms. Wilson. “She has really moved so many women’s organizations along.”