Donna Cornell, a highly successful entrepreneur, has been a driving force within the professional search, career counseling and life skills industries, as well as being an exceedingly accomplished community leader.
She founded her first recruitment firm in 1978 and built the organization to entail eight offices in four states, and with more than 100 employees and a temp service with 200 employees, all of which she eventually sold to Hobart West Group.
She repeated her entrepreneurial ventures, creating other businesses nationally that she then also successfully sold. She also was founder of Cornell International, a Wall Street search firm, eventually acquired by Adecco as well as Cornell Associates, sold in 2007 and an Arizona based firm, Circuit Technology Search.
But more than that, her exceptional leadership talents have been called upon on behalf of many community endeavors. Her contributions have been wide reaching with her commitment to the community by her appointments (now or prior) to several Boards of Directors, including:
The Family Health Center/Cornerstone; the Dutchess County Arts Council; Elant, Inc.; the Advisory Board of Fleet Bank; Eastern O.C. Chamber of Commerce; Healthcare Trustees of New York State; the Advisory Board of HUBCO Bank; Hudson Valley Philharmonic; Hudson Valley Technology Development Center Boards; International Association of Personnel Consultants; Marist College Advisory Board; Mid-Hudson Patterns for Progress; Orange County Partnership; Orange County Workforce Development Board; Regional Venture Capital Group; the Chambers SCORE program and the SUNY MBA Advisory Board. Additionally, she served as a Big Sister for 12 years through Big Brothers and Big Sisters.
She serves currently as a volunteer Chairman of the Board of Directors of Elant, Inc., a not-for-profit healthcare system which cared for more than 3,000 individuals daily, with 1,100 long-term care beds, six locations, a 90-million-dollar budget and 1,200 employees. With her superior leadership skills, she has helped this organization travel the challenging road of change that is taking place within the healthcare industry today. She has a myriad of impressive accomplishments in leading change within this organization and so many others.
One organization, The Orange County Partnership, an award-winning regional economic development organization, had Donna Cornell as part of its team, who served as the startup Chairperson and with others, helped develop and guide the organization to earn national recognition.
She has been cited as among the most influential people in the region and has adorned covers of regional publications. With little formal education after high school, she has successfully positioned herself as a powerful force, frequently serving as the first and only woman to break into the smoky male dominion of influential boards and committees.
