2011 Panel

Barbara M. Knuckles

Managing Director, Development & Corporate Relations, North Central College

 
Barbara joined North Central College in 1992 as Director of Corporate Relations, after a distinguished career in business during which she worked for 3 multinational firms and two family businesses. At North Central, she has been an integral part of the Institutional Advancement team, which successfully completed a $50 million capital campaign in 2002 and a $30 million capital campaign for the Fine Arts in 2008.

Barbara is a member of the Woman's Athletic Club of Chicago (chair, Consular Committee), Women Corporate Directors (co-chair) and the National Association of Corporate Directors (director-Chicago Chapter). She currently serves on the board of the Avery Coonley School (chair, Development Committee).

She has served on the Board of Directors of the DuPage Symphony Orchestra and the Naperville boards of the United Way, Edward Hospital (chair, Audit Committee), Chamber of Commerce (chair, Legislative Committee), Downtown Development Commission, and the Shanower 9/11 Commission. Her corporate boards have included Harris Bank/Naperville where she chaired the CRA committee and served on the Audit Committee; and Dollar General Corporation, Nashville, TN, where she served as one of 3 members of the Audit Committee (1995-2006) and was a member of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee (2006-2007), prior to the company being sold to a private equity firm in March, 2007. From 1988 to 2002 she served as a member of the compensation, pension and trust committees on the board of the J. R. Short Milling Company, a privately held family business, prior to the company being sold to Bunge Corporation.

Barbara is a graduate of the University of Illinois in Champaign where she received her BA in English Literature and MS with High Honors in Advertising. She has also completed Executive Management certificate programs at the Harvard Business School and the University of Chicago. Barbara and her husband, Jeffry, are members of Knox Presbyterian Church, where she served as an Elder. They live in Naperville and are the parents of one son, James, a 2007 graduate of Bowdoin College, who lives in Washington, D.C.

Barbara Klein

Former Senior Vice President, CFO, CDW Corporation

Barbara A. Klein is the former senior vice president and CFO of CDW Corporation, now a private company, but formerly a Fortune 500 company, and a leading provider of technology products and services for businesses, government agencies and educational institutions. The company was taken private in 2007 by two private equity organizations. Klein retired from CDW Corporation following the completion of this transaction.

As CFO, Klein was responsible for financial planning and analysis, corporate development and strategy, investor relations, financial reporting, financial analysis, treasury, credit and collections, risk management and internal audit.

Klein has more than 30 years of financial management and leadership experience. Before joining CDW, Klein served as vice president, finance and CFO of Dean Foods Company. Prior to Dean Foods, she served as vice president controller for Ameritech Corporation. Additionally, she held senior management positions at Pillsbury and Sears, Roebuck and Co., The Nutrasweet Company, and G.D. Searle & Co. She began her career at Ernst & Young.

Klein, a certified public accountant and member of the American Institute of CPAs, graduated magna cum laude from Marquette University with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and finance and a master’s of business administration from Loyola University. She belongs to the Financial Executives Institute and The Chicago Network and serves on the boards of Corn Products International, Cabot Microelectronics Corporation, the National Council on Compensation Insurance, and a not-for-profit organization called Ladder Up, an organization that provides free tax return preparation and other financial services to low-income families.