Jeannie Entenza, PhD, has extensive experience as a nonprofit manager, administrator, and public policy expert. She honed her management skills in county and nonprofit social service agencies covering a range of services that aided some of our population’s most vulnerable citizens. 

After years in direct service, Entenza took that experience to the public policy arena, to improve the systems that exist to help people obtain self sufficiency. Her public policy career was capped off with nine years on staff of the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, advocating for and promoting the role of the nonprofit sector in a civil society.  She returned to government service as chief of staff to former Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie from 2013 to 2015. 

Entenza was a 2012 Legislative Fellow in the Dominican Republic, funded by the U.S. Department of State and Partners of the Americas. She was granted a Fulbright award to conduct research at the University of Iceland in 2021, toward her dissertation topic of mapping the nonprofit sector in Iceland. In August 2022, she was appointed Honorary Consul by the Icelandic Foreign Ministry and serves the region of Minnesota and North Dakota.

She earned her PhD in management and public service from Hamline University in St. Paul.