As Chief Executive Officer of AARP, Jo Ann Jenkins leads the world’s largest non-profit, nonpartisan membership organization, dedicated to empowering people to choose how they live as they age. Jo Ann Jenkins led efforts to redefine AARP’s vision, challenge outdated beliefs and spark new insights that allow people to adapt to the new realities of aging – working to offer practical solutions to everyday issues such as health, financial resilience, digital and social connectivity, work opportunities and personal fulfilment.
Upon being named CEO in 2014, Jo Ann Jenkins was quick to recognize that the way people are ageing is changing, but many of the solutions designed to help people live better as they age have not. Her book, Disrupt Aging: A Bold New Path to Living Your Best Life at Every Age, challenges us to reject outdated stereotypes and attitudes toward ageing and spark new solutions that empower all people to live better as they age. It has joined others to form a rallying cry for revolutionizing society’s views on ageing by driving a new social consciousness and sparking innovative solutions for all generations.
Jo Ann Jenkins has also become a leader in addressing global ageing issues. Working with the United Nations, the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD) and the World Economic Forum (WEF), she has led AARP and AARP International to address key issues such as the multi-generational workforce, healthy longevity, and age-friendly communities. As co-chair of the WEF Governor’s Council on Global Health and Healthcare and as co-chair of the International Oversight Committee for the Global Roadmap for Healthy Longevity, she has worked to advance the business case for healthy longevity while urging business and employers to embrace policies and practices that promote longer and healthier lives.
Jo Ann Jenkins demonstrates the transformations that are possible and the innovations that are still required even as the leader of a large and established organisation on healthy ageing. The next decade promises significant societal changes of which population ageing is only a part – and organizations can no longer stand alone nor conduct business as usual to ensure health and well-being for current and future generations of older people.