March 31, 2023
Self-awareness in leadership is an understanding of how one’s personality, habits, and abilities affect one’s interactions with people, especially in the workplace. Jennifer Litchman started her journey to self-aware leadership in a college town in Iowa, where she saw both of her grandmothers attain a level of professional success unusual for the time: Her maternal grandmother, in addition to being an English teacher, was a state legislator, and her paternal grandmother was dean of women at Iowa State University. From sorority life and culture shock in the South to being in the middle of a scandal on Capitol Hill, Jennifer’s start as an administrative assistant began to feel like a prison, and a brief “sabbatical” in Egypt and an important mentor led to graduate school and a change of professions. Her new life in higher education, a bout of imposter syndrome, and a book tour for a New York Times bestseller led her to realize her strengths – and weaknesses – and helped her realize her true potential as a visionary creative. As Jennifer shares her experiences and her path to success, she is clear about the fact that self-aware leadership is a journey, not a destination.
Jennifer Litchman is senior vice president for external relations at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. She received a BA from the University of South Carolina and an MA in public communication from the American University, and certificates from Penn’s Wharton School and Harvard’s Kennedy School.
After 15 years in Washington, working on Capitol Hill and in the business sector, Jennifer joined UMB in 1999 as director of public affairs at the School of Medicine. Jennifer was named special assistant to the president of UMB in January 2011 and was promoted to interim chief communications officer and vice president in August of the same year. She assumed the role of CCO & VP in 2012. She added Government Affairs and Community Engagement to her portfolio in 2015 and was promoted to Senior Vice President for External Relations in 2018.
Jennifer founded the Council for the Arts & Culture to enhance the quality of life on campus and in the West Baltimore community by promoting the use of UMB’s public spaces for the visual and performing arts, as well as to raise awareness of the links between the arts and sciences. That same year she founded UMBrella, UMB Roundtable on Empowerment in Leadership and Leveraging Aspirations, an organization that works to engage a community that supports the success of women, advances women into leadership roles at UMB, and champions women at all levels of the organization.
She is the executive producer of “From West Baltimore,” a series of five documentaries filmed over a seven-year period, that follows five children from the west side of Baltimore, from 6th grade to high school graduation, and captures their resilience and determination to find a better life.
Jennifer lives in Annapolis with her husband, Jonathan, their two children, and a pug named Theo and a cat named Kitten. Originally from Ames, Iowa, she and her 10 best childhood friends are the subjects of the non-fiction book “The Girls from Ames,” which spent over six months on the New York Times bestseller list. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Port Discovery Children’s Museum and Baltimore’s Everyman Theatre, a member of the Women’s Leadership Advisory Board of the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Baltimore, is one of Baltimore Magazine’s Women Who Move Maryland, The Daily Record’s “Top 100 Women” in 2016 and 2022, and in the Leadership Maryland Class of 2017. She is also a member of CHIEF, a private membership network focused on connecting and supporting women executive leaders.