Trisha Cunningham is President and CEO of the North Texas Food Bank (NTFB), a $200 million nonprofit food logistics organization focused on eradicating hunger in a 13-county area. Cunningham along with 200 employees, tens of thousands of volunteers and more than 260 feeding network partners, work to provide access to nutritious food for 800,000 working poor, children and senior adults. In the most recent year, the team provided access to nearly 126 million meals as they served on the front line of the pandemic to meet the surge of economic-related needs. NTFB exceeded their 92 million meal goal 5 years early and recently expanded their strategic plan to utilize their core competency of food distribution to collaboratively partner to address root causes of hunger.
Over her career, Cunningham has helped organizations manage risk, enhance reputation and create a positive culture that engages employees. Prior to NTFB, she was Chief Citizenship Officer at Texas Instruments (TI) (NASDAQ: TXN), a global semiconductor company operating in more than 35 countries. Cunningham led TI’s global social impact strategy including cross-company sustainability leadership; environmental, social and governance reporting; philanthropy and community engagement. Under her leadership, TI rose to a top 20 position on CR Magazine’s Top 100 Corporate Citizens, expanded employee volunteerism 13x and increased employee giving 40 percent. In other roles, Cunningham developed and executed successful global marketing, branding and communications programs for semiconductor products. She also founded the Dallas Fort Worth Corporate Citizenship Network creating a collaborative impact model still in existence today and served on Boston College’s Center for Corporate Citizenship Executive Forum and World 50’s Sustainability 50.
Cunningham currently serves as chair of the Feeding Texas state board, board development chair for Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas and a board director for International Women’s Forum (IWF) Dallas Chapter. She received her National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) Governance Fellow certification in 2017 and is a member of the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) Institute for Excellence in Corporate Governance where she is faculty for the Nonprofit Governance Certificate Program. She is a member of Nonprofit CEO Council, Rotary Club of Park Cities, Dallas Regional Chamber Executive Women’s Roundtable, United Way’s Women of Tocqueville and The Dallas Assembly. She serves as executive leadership for the DFW Mass Care Task Force and has also served on Feeding America national committees focused on technology and network resource allocation.
Past board roles include Leadership Women (national), Girls Inc. (Dallas), Dallas Breakfast Group, Dallas Friday Group and VolunteerNow. She also served on advisory boards for UTD Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Murray State University’s computer information systems and Junior League of Dallas as well as the Commit! Leadership Council (Dallas County education) and the Super Bowl XLV Host Committee.
Cunningham has received numerous honors including Dallas Business Journal’s 2020 Women in Business honoree and 2020 Most Inspiring Leader; DCEO’s Dallas 500 Most Influential Business Leaders (2019-21) and Women Who Make Dallas Great (2021); Collin County Business Alliance’s 2020 Leadership Award; Dallas Morning News 2020 Texan of the Year finalist; Elite News 2020 Women of Wisdom honoree; Dallas Regional Chamber’s Leadership Dallas 2019 Distinguished Alumni; the Junior League of Collin County’s 2019 Nonprofit Executive of the Year; Plano Magazine’s 2019 Girl Boss; Leadership Women Director Emeritus; Rotary Club of Park Cities Paul Harris Fellow and 2020 Cleveland G. Clinton Collaborative Award; Murray State University’s Lana Garner Porter Women in Technology award; CNM Connect’s Corporate Social Responsibility Executive of the Year; and several Girl Scouts awards. Cunningham is a graduate of the IWF Fellows program, Leadership Dallas, Leadership Texas and Leadership International.
Trisha has a B.S. in Computer Information Systems with an emphasis in business from Murray State University. She and her husband, Greg, have two grown children and reside in Fairview (Collin County).