Cornelia Grumman is Executive Director of The First Five Years Fund, a new initiative aimed at providing a million more at risk children nationwide with high-quality early learning opportunities. FFYF is supported by five major family foundations: Buffett, Gates, Kaiser, Pritzker and Harris.

Until 2008, Grumman had been a member of the Chicago Tribune's editorial board, where she wrote primarily about education, juvenile justice, social issues, state issues and the death penalty. Grumman also oversaw political endorsements for the Tribune.

In 2002, Grumman's series of editorials on Illinois' death penalty helped prompt sweeping legislative reforms, including electronic taping of police interrogations in homicide cases. Her 2005 series on the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center prompted federal and state investigations, scrutiny by independent monitors, a federal court-mandated plan for reform and the removal of five top administrators at the center. In early 2007, Grumman was the lead writer on a seven-part series advocating widespread reform of Illinois' schools and its educational funding system

Prior to becoming a member of the editorial board, Grumman spent six years as a metropolitan, state government and Internet reporter for the Tribune. She worked as a news and features reporter at the News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina, as a stringer for the Washington Post in Beijing, China in the aftermath of the student democracy movement in 1989, and as a reporter at the Daily Southtown in Chicago.

She won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for editorials about how to reform Illinois' system of capital punishment. Grumman earned a masters degree in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard Univeristy and a bachelors degree in public policy from Duke University. She lives in Chicago with her husband, Jim Warren, and their 4-year-old son, Blair.

Grumman's postings are her individual views and do not necessarily
reflect those of her employer or any of the foundations that support the
FFYF.

Show full bio

Hide full bio