Lilly Endowment Taps Board Member to Serve as New President

The Lilly Endowment’s Board of Directors has picked one of its own, corporate lawyer Jennett Hill, to serve as president, making her the first Black woman — in fact, the first Black person — to lead the nation’s second wealthiest private foundation.

Hill, senior vice president of Citizens Energy Group, will assume the position in February. Hill will report to Clay Robbins, who has served as president for more than two decades and later became chief executive and chairman, too. He has no immediate plans to step down as CEO and chairman.

Citizens Energy Group is a utility company that provides power to about 800,000 people in the Indianapolis area.

At the end of 2020, the endowment’s assets totaled about $21 billion, making it the second wealthiest private foundation behind the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2020, the foundation made $773 million in grants, more than two-thirds of which were directed to nonprofits in Indiana, where it is located. (The Lilly Endowment is a financial supporter of the Chronicle.)

Before joining Citizens Energy Group, Hill was a partner at law firm Faegre Baker Daniels, the same firm where Robbins worked before coming to the endowment in 1993.

Hill serves on several boards, including the Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation, the Arthur Jordan Foundation, the Indiana Energy Association, and Riley Children’s Foundation.