Ilene Frankel

Executive Director

Joined: 2012

Ilene is passionate about giving young people the chance to learn about and experience entrepreneurship. She leads the entrepreneurial programming, professional development, and ecosystem-building teams at YEI, working with K-12 educators, schools, programs, networks, and entrepreneurial education providers throughout the country. In 2023, Ilene was named the W. Robert Simpson ‘48 Chair in Entrepreneurship at University School where she leads the curricular and extracurricular entrepreneurial programming for the school.

Throughout her tenure at YEI, Ilene has worked on all of YEI’s programs and initiatives, including Young Entrepreneur Pitch Challenge, Young Entrepreneur Market and the annual Enspire Conference.

Prior to joining YEI, Ilene spent more than twenty years working in businesses of all sizes. Ilene is a board member of the Rekindle Fellowship, an organization devoted to driving social change through collaboration between the Black and Jewish communities in Cleveland. She is an Emeritus Trustee of the Rainbow Babies & Children’s Foundation, where she served on the board for nine years. Ilene holds an Economics degree from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Ilene lives in Cleveland, Ohio with her husband and two elderly pugs. Her three grown children live on the West Coast.

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