Jewell names interim president

04/12/2024

William Jewell College announces the appointment of alumna Susan Chambers as interim president. Current president Dr. Elizabeth MacLeod Walls will leave on June 30 after eight years in the role and as Jewell’s first female president to assume the role of president at Washington and Jefferson College in Pennsylvania.

A Presidential Search Committee has been formed and will select a search firm this summer to assist with the national search. The committee expects to name the College’s 16th president in the first quarter of 2025 with a start date of summer 2025.

Chambers will serve one year beginning June 1. She served three terms as a Jewell trustee, led the search committee that hired MacLeod Walls and served for three years as chair of the Jewell Board of Trustees. She is a trustee of Kauffman Foundation, recently serving as interim CEO and on their CEO Search Committee and has served on the Arkansas State Board of Education and in numerous other professional, leadership and service roles. Principal of Chambers Consulting, she retired in 2015 as executive vice president and chief people officer for Walmart Inc., responsible for managing, attracting and retaining a private, global workforce of more than 2 million Walmart associates. She was named to Fortune magazine’s list of the “50 Most Powerful Women in Business” five years in a row. She has been invited to speak on culture and leadership at conferences and institutions of higher learning, including Duke University, West Point and the U.S. Naval Academy. Chambers was a Vital Voices Global Ambassador in India and a Fortune/U.S. State Department mentor to women entrepreneurs in Uganda, Kenya and South Africa.