During her 30-year career, Marguerite Sallee has been both an entrepreneur and a public servant. In the private sector for 20 years, she has been CEO of three companies -- a start-up, a roll-up, and a turn-around. The start-up, Corporate Family Solutions, she founded in 1987 with Lamar Alexander and Bob Keeshan, television's Captain Kangaroo, to provide more and better child care for working parents through employer sponsorship. It became the nation's largest provider of workplace child care, and she took the company public in 1997 (Nasdaq: BFAM). Sallee retired as CEO of the company, now called Bright Horizons Family Solutions, in 1999, and continued on the board until returning to public service in 2003. The company today is a $1 billion enterprise employing over 30,000 people, serving over 400 corporate clients at over 500 child care centers in five countries. It has seven times been named one of Fortune magazine's "100 Best Companies to Work For."

Prior to founding the child care company, Ms. Sallee served in Tennessee state government where she developed and led then-Governor Lamar Alexander's statewide four-year "Healthy Children Initiative." She later served in the cabinet of Governor Alexander as commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Human Services.

Prior to joining America's Promise, she served as special assistant to U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander as well as staff director for the Senate Subcommittee on Children and Families. Her focus in the 108th Congress was on education, health care, social welfare, and the challenges of working families, especially military families.

Ms. Sallee has received numerous awards and honors, including regional Entrepreneur of the Year, awarded by Ernst &Young. In 1994, she was named the first woman to chair the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce. Today she is a member of the board of Saks, Inc. (NYSE: SKS), and a trustee of Washington's Arena Stage, a leader in the regional theater movement. Ms. Sallee is also a member of the Board of Visitors at Duke University's Terry Sanford School of Public Policy, and serves on the advisory boards of Avondale Partners, Nashville, Tenn., and HLM Venture Partners, Boston, Mass., both investment banking firms.  She recently stepped down as chairman of the board of the Ladies Professional Golf Association after ten years on their board.

An undergraduate alumna of Duke University, she also holds a master's degree from Austin Peay State University.