Jenny Dearborn

Jenny Dearborn is the Senior Vice President and Chief Learning Officer at SAP, accountable to drive measurable business impact by designing, aligning and ensuring execution of SAP’s overall learning activities for the company’s 85,000 employees globally. Before SAP, Jenny was CLO at SuccessFactors, where her team was recognized as the #1 performing corporate learning department by Elearning Magazine and won numerous industry awards for sales enablement and learning impact measurement. Previously, Jenny led learning and development at Hewlett-Packard for Global Sales & Enterprise Marketing, Global Technology Services and Global Corporate Learning Strategy. Prior, Jenny was CLO for the Americas at Sun Microsystems, where she led employee, partner and customer enablement, carrying a $100M P&L; she was also Sun’s Chief Learning Architect across all global corporate learning content. Jenny was also CLO at Docent, which is now Sum Total Systems. She began her career as an instructor and instructional designer. A thought leader in learning, human capital management and business culture, Jenny is a regular contributor to mainstream business and industry publications. Jenny was recognized by the Financial Times as one of the top 25 global executive allies to LGBT community. Jenny was recognized in 2014 and 2015 as one of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Technology by the National Diversity Council. She received the 2014 Silicon Valley Women of Influence Award and the 2013 Silicon Valley Tribute to Women in Industry Award. In 2015 she was Executive Producer of the popular twice-monthly radio show “Game Changers: Women in Business” on the Voice of America Radio Network to explore news, trends and thought leadership on issues relating to advancing women in business. Jenny is a strong champion and supporter of equality and diversity. She is the global executive sponsor of SAP’s Business Women’s Network (to promote and support SAP women) and Pride@SAP (to support SAP’s LGBT community). Jenny was on the Boards of Directors at the Association for Talent Development (the world’s largest association for workplace learning) 2013-2015, Institute for Corporate Productivity (human capital research and data firm that discovers the people practices that drive high performance) starting in 2014, The Commonwealth Club (where she interviews leading authors and public figures in front of a live audience for recording and broadcast on National Public Radio) and is a member of the Lucas Graduate School of Business Board of Governors at San Jose State University. Through the Fortune Most Powerful Women Network, she is a mentor for the US State Department to female entrepreneurs in developing countries. Her first book, Data Driven: How Performance Analytics Delivers Extraordinary Sales Results, was published by Wiley in February, 2015, debuted at #1 on Amazon in their New Business Release category and was in the top 10 list of “What Corporate America is Reading” in 2015. Jenny earned an MBA with a concentration in Organizational Development from San Jose State University, a Masters of Education and Teaching Credential in English from Stanford University, a Bachelors of Arts in English from University of California at Berkeley and an Associates of Arts degree in Social Sciences from American River College in Sacramento. She is a PhD candidate at Pepperdine University for a Doctorate in Global Leadership and Change. She has embraced her personal challenges, Dyslexia, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, that were formative in her youth and now harness them as sources of personal strength and power. She grew up in a big family in Davis, California. A professional artist and competitive athlete, Jenny and her college sweetheart husband of 25 years, real estate developer John Tarlton, have four active children ages 24, 18, 15 & 13. She and her family live in Palo Alto, California.