Amy McCombs
Chair, Advancement Committee
Amy McCombs is a chief executive, board member and entrepreneur with experience in the media, higher education, financial services, and nonprofit sectors. McCombs spent her career in media, holding President/CEO positions at the Chronicle Publishing Company in San Francisco and the Broadcast Division of the Washington Post Company. As an entrepreneur, she was a board member of the Media Convergence Group, an early stage, venture-funded technology firm focusing on digital media. Amy is Professor Emeritus at the University Missouri School of Journalism and formerly served as the Lee Hills Chair in Free-Press Studies and a Professor at Missouri’s Truman School of Public Affairs. She has been recognized as one of the “50 Most Influential Businesswomen” by the San Francisco Business Times, is a recipient of the prestigious University of Missouri School of Journalism Medal of Honor for Distinguished Service in Journalism and the Michigan Anti-Defamation League First Amendment Freedom Award. Broadcast-industry awards she has received include a Dupont Award and multiple Emmys. She has served as a board member and Interim President of the Presidio Graduate School (San Francisco); a Trustee of the University of Detroit; and a member of the Claremont University Consortium Board of Overseers. Other nonprofit boards on which Amy serves or has served include the National Advisory Board of the Commonwealth Club of California, the nation’s oldest and largest public affairs forum; the Smithsonian Institution’s National Board; and the Santa Fe Botanical Garden.