Profile
Ann (Gregg) Skeet is senior director for leadership ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, the Jesuit university in Silicon Valley. She researches, writes and speaks about the ethical dilemmas of leaders, followers, corporate culture and the ethical challenges of governance. She works with executives to shape and reinforce organizational cultures that encourage ethical outcomes. With her colleagues at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, she uses tools such a model for The Practice of Ethics in Leadership©, the Ethical Culture Assessment, and a culture change management model to help leaders understand, discuss, and positively influence their cultures and business practices.
Skeet is a member of the Partnership on AI’s Working Group on AI, Labor and the Economy and the steering committee for the Responsible Use of Technology at the World Economic Forum’s Centre for the 4th Industrial Revolution. She launched a social sector ethics program and led development of a customized version of Standards for Excellence, a national code of ethics and accountability for the nonprofit sector, using the Center’s Framework for Ethical Decision-Making. She writes about issues facing leaders across sectors regularly for her blog, Benison: The Practice of Ethical Leadership, and other media outlets, and is a frequent media commentator.
Ann served as CEO of American Leadership Forum Silicon Valley for 8 years and worked for a decade as a Knight Ridder executive, serving the San Jose Mercury News and Contra Costa Newspapers as Vice President of Marketing. She was also president of Notre Dame High School San Jose.
In the Silicon Valley community, Ann has served on the boards of numerous organizations, including the Silicon Valley Directors Exchange; the Institute for Sports Law and Ethics; the Catholic Community Foundation of Santa Clara County; and as chair for United Way of Silicon Valley, and American Musical Theatre San Jose.
Ann is a magna cum laude graduate of Bucknell University and member of Phi Beta Kappa. She holds a master of business administration degree from Harvard Business School and spent her early career working in outside plant for C&P Telephone Company in the Washington, D.C. area.