Jennifer Winstead has served as President and CEO of the Pennington Biomedical Research Foundation since 2004.  The Foundation is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization with assets of approximately $25 million, affiliated with the Pennington Biomedical Research Center to accept, manage and steward private philanthropy from individuals, foundations and corporations.  Pennington Biomedical Research Center is the foremost academic nutritional research center in the world dedicated to finding the cures for chronic diseases.  During her tenure, the Foundation has experienced significant growth in endowed, restricted and unrestricted funding. 

Winstead formerly served as Director of Regional Development for the Diabetes Research Institute Foundation in Florida, part of the University of Miami School of Medicine.  While at DRIF, she supervised the expansion of the organization’s fundraising activities to New York and California, planning and coordinating fundraising activities, corporate sponsorships, and donor cultivation, resulting in strong income growth.  Prior to that, she was Area Director for the American Heart Association in Virginia, where she directed fundraising and educational campaigns.

She currently serves as President-Elect of the Rotary Club of Baton Rouge, the eighth largest Rotary Club in the world.  The Baton Rouge Area Chamber named her as a representative member of the Southeast Super-Region Committee, where she serves as Vice Chair of the Innovation Sub-Committee.  Winstead also lends her volunteer efforts to support the Cub Scouts, teach a youth confirmation class, and serve on the Board of Trustees and Church Council of First United Methodist Church in Baton Rouge.  She previously served on the board of the Baton Rouge Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, as both Vice President of Membership and Programming.  She is a graduate of Council for a Better Louisiana’s 2007 Leadership Louisiana class and was recognized by the Baton Rouge Business Report as a member of their 2004 Top Forty under Forty.