About Us
Patricia D. Shannon (Trish) is the Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President for Strategy, Innovation, Finance, Grants, Technology and Business Operations for AARP Foundation. Trish has over 30 years of for profit and non-profit experience both domestically and internationally. She has a passion for working to improve the lives of others. Throughout her career she has traveled extensively and worked tirelessly to promote best practices and effective solutions to business problems in order to create efficiencies and streamline operations for greater program impact.
At AARP Foundation Trish is responsible for aligning resources with outcomes that provide the greatest impact for the low income 50+. She and her team lead efforts to develop, design, and improve systems and activities across the Foundation to maximize scalable results. This includes oversight for management of resources through the planning and budgeting process, strategic grant making, innovation and program evaluation. Trish and her team provide business operations and technology solutions to promote efficient and effective processes to support data driven decision making. All of the team’s work is driven by effective stewardship of resources and appropriate risk taking.
Prior to joining AARP Foundation she was the Vice President, Finance &Administration for CEDPA, an international non-profit focusing on women's rights, education and health issues. She was also the Director of Internal Audit at CARE (the world's largest international development and relief organization) where she successfully established and developed the internal audit function serving headquarters and over 40 country offices throughout the developing world. She began her career with the public accounting firm of Coopers &Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers) in New York, NY and Sydney, Australia.
Trish received her MBA from the Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University and received a BS in Accounting and Economics from the Tobin College of Business at St. John’s University. She is a CPA (NY State) and a Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA).
Trish is a Malcolm Baldrige Fellow (2015). The Baldrige Fellows program is a one-year, nationally ranked leadership development program focused on impactful leadership and achieving performance excellence by stimulating innovation and building the knowledge and capabilities necessary for organizational sustainability.
In 2017 Trish received a graduate certificate in Public Health from the Milken Institute School of Public Health of the George Washington University.
AARP Foundation Executive Leadership Team
- Claire Casey, President
- Emily Allen, Senior Vice President, Programs
- Brittany Feinson, Senior Vice President, Marketing & Communications
- Shelley Goode, Senior Vice President & Chief Development Officer
- William (Bill) Alvarado Rivera, Senior Vice President, Litigation
- Patricia D. Shannon, Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer