Renee Wessels

Renee Wessels serves as an associate executive director at the Buffett Institute. She joined the Institute at its inception in 2013 and serves as the Institute’s chief strategy officer. She also oversees external affairs and is engaged in policy efforts at the Institute.

With more than 35 years of experience in public affairs, strategic communications, and public policy, Wessels has worked with and helped to lead several of the nation’s leading organizations dedicated to improving the lives of children, including Save the Children, the Children’s Defense Fund, and the National Commission on Children. She also has operated her own consulting firm and served as a senior managing director at Hill and Knowlton, a Fortune 500 public affairs firm, where she was responsible for the company’s social marketing practice. In addition, she has worked in the U.S. Congress and in the Nebraska Legislature and Governor’s Office.

Wessels holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and a graduate degree in international and comparative politics from the London School of Economics.