Cinny Kennard

Cynthia "Cinny" Clare Kennard is an American business and nonprofit executive, author and former broadcast journalist. She is a board member of Wallis Annenberg Legacy Foundation, based in Los Angeles. Kennard was the Executive Director of the Annenberg Foundation for over a decade working alongside Foundation CEO Wallis Annenberg.

Kennard was a television news correspondent with CBS News in London, Los Angeles and Moscow, and a local television reporter in Texas, California and Indiana. Her journalism awards include a 1992 Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award for coverage of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

She went on to a long career in nonprofit executive management with NPR, Smithsonian Media, and The Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands.

Early career Kennard started her journalism career in the late 1970s at WNLK Radio in Norwalk, Connecticut, as a reporter, anchor, and talk show host. and WFAA television station in Dallas, where she covered the Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas sexual harassment hearings, the 1992 U.S. presidential election, and the historic 1990 race where Ann Richards became the governor of Texas.

As a correspondent for CBS News, Kennard covered the 1992 Los Angeles riots, the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis and the war in the former Yugoslavia. where she leads the Women and Communication Leadership Initiative.

She researched and published widely on the role of females in broadcast war coverage, including co-authoring, "Characteristics of War Coverage by Female Correspondents," in the book, Media and Conflict in the 21st Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). Her research on gender and television war coverage was presented at several conferences, including the American Political Science Association. Kennard also co-authored a piece on gender and communications in, "The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Changes Everything."

Executive career

Kennard transitioned from broadcast journalist to managing director and managing editor of NPR West, launching NPR's footprint in the Western United States in Culver City, California. to Sunnylands, including former President Barack Obama, former U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein, the King of Jordan.

Kennard completed the strategic plan for Sunnylands and is the executive producer of, "A Place Called Sunnylands," an award-winning orientation film that runs in the Sunnylands Visitor Center.

In January 2015 she became managing director to work with Board Chair Wallis Annenberg and Executive Director Leonard Aube.

Annenberg Foundation (2015-2025)

Kennard served as Executive Director answering directly to CEO Wallis Annenberg at the Annenberg Foundation. Kennard’s leadership spanned a decade including during the COVID pandemic, when she worked with city and civic leaders on emergency response. Kennard was a co-founder of the first LA County Office to address food insecurity in Los Angeles, advocating for a food czar during COVID. She worked with the National Wildlife Federation to create the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, the largest urban Wildlife Crossing in the world.

Kennard launched Annenberg Tech and Pledge LA in 2018 to expand tech access in Los Angeles. Kennard oversaw daily operations of the Annenberg Space for Photography, which closed in 2020 during the Pandemic after a ten-year run.

Committees and boards Kennard is Chair of the Advisory Board at the USC Center on Philanthropy & Public Policy, a member of The Trusteeship of the International Women’s Forum, and co-founder of Women Leaders in Philanthropy, a national group of female foundation executives. She is a member of the Milken Institute's Future of Aging Advisory Board Leadership Council.

She co-founded the Carole Kneeland Project for Responsible Journalism and serves as an executive board member.

Kennard is the Chair of the Board at the USC Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy and a member of The Trusteeship of the IWF and co-founded the Women Leaders in Philanthropy Group

Personal life Kennard is married to Vittorio Morandin and currently lives in Los Angeles. She was born to an Irish-Catholic family in Milford, Connecticut. Kennard is a graduate of the Academy of Our Lady of Mercy, Lauralton Hall (Class of 1972). She graduated with a bachelor's degree in communications from Northeastern University in 1977.