Anne Trenolone

Anne Trenolone "serves as director of foreign policy and international women's issues at the Independent Women's Forum (IWF). Ms. Trenolone has more than a decade of high-level program management, communications and policy development experience in both the domestic and international arenas. Prior to joining IWF, Ms. Trenolone served for two years as senior policy advisor and public policy manager at the Foundation for International Community Assistance (FINCA International). At FINCA Ms. Trenolone spearheaded advocacy activities promoting microfinance as a poverty alleviation tool that builds stable societies and worked with field offices in 21 countries to design policy initiatives and communications plans on regulatory, operational and expansion issues. She worked extensively on issues concerning FINCA's Afghanistan affiliate, the impact of transformational diplomacy on US foreign assistance and on global policy issues regarding microfinance and the economic empowerment of women.

"Ms. Trenolone has worked on election projects with the International Organization for Migration and as a healthcare communications consultant. From September 2003 to April 2004, she served as public affairs advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Health. While in Baghdad she assisted with health promotion and public health outreach campaigns, designed and launched the Ministry's Arabic-English website and served as a liaison to the press on the health sector in Iraq. Assigned to the Department of Defense in August of 2003, she previously worked in the office of Congresswoman Kay Granger.

"Ms. Trenolone began her time in Washington as a member of Laura Bush's policy staff at the White House. While there she served as chief editor of the 13-volume Healthy Start, Grow Smart early cognitive development magazine series and worked to design and implement the First Lady's Ready to Read, Ready to Learn early childhood education initiative. She also worked closely with the Library of Congress to plan and stage the first National Book Festival in 2001 and subsequent festivals in 2002 and 2003. She began her time in the East Wing on January 22, 2001, after working for more than two years in the press office of then Governor of Texas George W. Bush. While at the governor's office she worked with policy specialists to draft a comprehensive document outlining the governor's 5-year record in Texas and aided the press secretary in fielding media inquiries and preparing responses for local, national and international media outlets.

"She has traveled extensively for her work both in the US and internationally including time spent in the Middle East and North Africa region, Afghanistan and Latin America. A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, she holds a Bachelor of Journalism and is an alum of American University's Washington Semester where she studied politics and journalism during the 1996 presidential election. Ms. Trenolone began her career in publishing as a financial and healthcare writer for a business publishing company and as an assistant art director for a nationally distributed English textbook series. Her work and interest in public affairs began in Texas where she spent three sessions working for and with the Texas Legislature in Austin including on the floor of the Texas House of Representatives and the Texas Senate.

"She is a member of the Society for International Development and served on the Advisory Board of the Iraqi Women's Educational Institute's Small-Grant and NGO Capacity Building Initiative."