About Brenna Davis
About Brenna DavisBrenna Davis is a Chief Executive Officer, board director, and internationally bestselling, Nautilus Gold Award-winning author whose work explores the intersection of leadership, governance, stewardship ownership, and long-term value creation.
Today, she leads one of the largest Perpetual Purpose Trust-owned companies in the United States, overseeing a complex, nine-figure enterprise spanning procurement, transportation, cold-chain logistics, warehousing, ripening operations, and branded consumer products. Her experience leading a mission-driven business at scale has shaped a distinctive perspective on how governance, ownership, and leadership influence the long-term health of organizations, communities, and the living systems on which they depend.
Her journey began long before the boardroom.
As a child, Brenna watched a forest she loved disappear to logging crews. That experience sparked a question that would shape her career: Why do organizations make decisions that undermine the very systems they depend on to survive?
She spent the next two decades leading across seven industries, from heavy industry and telecommunications to healthcare and food systems, exploring how leadership, incentives, governance, and capital shape outcomes at scale. Those experiences led her to a defining belief: many of today's greatest challenges are not failures of intention, but failures of system design.
That belief continues to guide her work.
As CEO, Brenna leads enterprise strategy, governance, operations, organizational transformation, and long-term growth within one of the nation's most innovative ownership models. Her experience includes enterprise P&L and EBITDA accountability, acquisitions, ERP modernization, organizational development, capital planning, and board engagement, all while navigating the realities of leading a complex organization through continual change.
She is an NACD Certified Director and serves on corporate and advisory boards, bringing practical expertise in governance, stewardship ownership, enterprise resilience, and long-horizon strategy. Throughout her career, she has contributed to national conversations on sustainability, climate leadership, and responsible business, including engagements connected with the Obama Administration and climate leadership forums featuring Vice President Al Gore. These experiences broadened her perspective on the relationship between governance, markets, public policy, and long-term societal outcomes.
Brenna is the author of Leading Through Fire: Resilient Leadership for People, Planet, and the Future, an internationally bestselling and Nautilus Gold Award-winning book that brings together executive experience, systems thinking, and deeply human reflection. Through her writing and speaking, she challenges leaders to think beyond short-term performance and build organizations designed to endure.
Whether addressing executive teams, boards of directors, universities, or leadership forums, Brenna explores resilient leadership, stewardship ownership, governance, and the future of enterprise. Her work offers a practical perspective grounded not in theory, but in the daily responsibility of leading through uncertainty, complexity, and change.
Brenna lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and their two rescue dogs. Outside the boardroom, she enjoys mushroom hunting, cooking, listening to music, and walking through forests that continue to remind her why this work matters.
Today, she leads one of the largest Perpetual Purpose Trust-owned companies in the United States, overseeing a complex, nine-figure enterprise spanning procurement, transportation, cold-chain logistics, warehousing, ripening operations, and branded consumer products. Her experience leading a mission-driven business at scale has shaped a distinctive perspective on how governance, ownership, and leadership influence the long-term health of organizations, communities, and the living systems on which they depend.
Her journey began long before the boardroom.
As a child, Brenna watched a forest she loved disappear to logging crews. That experience sparked a question that would shape her career: Why do organizations make decisions that undermine the very systems they depend on to survive?
She spent the next two decades leading across seven industries, from heavy industry and telecommunications to healthcare and food systems, exploring how leadership, incentives, governance, and capital shape outcomes at scale. Those experiences led her to a defining belief: many of today's greatest challenges are not failures of intention, but failures of system design.
That belief continues to guide her work.
As CEO, Brenna leads enterprise strategy, governance, operations, organizational transformation, and long-term growth within one of the nation's most innovative ownership models. Her experience includes enterprise P&L and EBITDA accountability, acquisitions, ERP modernization, organizational development, capital planning, and board engagement, all while navigating the realities of leading a complex organization through continual change.
She is an NACD Certified Director and serves on corporate and advisory boards, bringing practical expertise in governance, stewardship ownership, enterprise resilience, and long-horizon strategy. Throughout her career, she has contributed to national conversations on sustainability, climate leadership, and responsible business, including engagements connected with the Obama Administration and climate leadership forums featuring Vice President Al Gore. These experiences broadened her perspective on the relationship between governance, markets, public policy, and long-term societal outcomes.
Brenna is the author of Leading Through Fire: Resilient Leadership for People, Planet, and the Future, an internationally bestselling and Nautilus Gold Award-winning book that brings together executive experience, systems thinking, and deeply human reflection. Through her writing and speaking, she challenges leaders to think beyond short-term performance and build organizations designed to endure.
Whether addressing executive teams, boards of directors, universities, or leadership forums, Brenna explores resilient leadership, stewardship ownership, governance, and the future of enterprise. Her work offers a practical perspective grounded not in theory, but in the daily responsibility of leading through uncertainty, complexity, and change.
Brenna lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and their two rescue dogs. Outside the boardroom, she enjoys mushroom hunting, cooking, listening to music, and walking through forests that continue to remind her why this work matters.
“If you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area.
Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in.
Go a little bit out of your depth.
And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”
― David Bowie
Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in.
Go a little bit out of your depth.
And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”
― David Bowie