Susan Hennenfent Assumes Presidency of Women’s Empowerment International

Susan Hennenfent, wireless communications and product management specialist, and former Senior Director of Product Management at Qualcomm is the new President of www.WomenEmpowerment.org a San Diego-based nonprofit that provides grant funding to local and international programs that help women and girls build financial security. Her term will run for one year.

She earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering at the University of Akron, Ohio, and an MBA at San Diego State University. In addition to Qualcomm, she has held engineering and product management positions at Pulse Engineering and Cubic Corporation.

An active community member, she is co-administrator of the Explore Our Sense of Place Education and Hiking program, with San Dieguito River Valley Conservancy; served two terms on the San Diego Women’s Foundation Board; and twice as President of the Del Mar/Solana Beach Rotary Club. 

Celebrating its 20^th Anniversary of grantmaking this year, WE has funded over $2.8 million for poverty-alleviation projects in ten countries, including the U.S. Locally, the WE-founded STAR Center at the International Rescue Committee, San Diego, has enabled San Diego women experiencing poverty to launch and expand over 1,300 businesses. 

She has a long-standing commitment to the economic empowerment of women. As a member of the Del Mar/Solana Beach Rotary Club, she was instrumental in opening an El Salvador preschool and adult education trade school and providing cook stoves and latrines to families and a medical clinic.                            

“The families we helped lived in stick huts along a river, and barely supported themselves by gathering and selling shellfish. They were so poor, that few of the children could attend school. We saw what an impact our projects made in their lives,” she said. 

A resident of Carmel Valley, she has served on the WE Board since 2020 and as a member of the Marketing and Programs and Partnerships committees.