The little elementary school library in Breda, Iowa – population 400 or so – had the magazine with the yellow border.
Jill Tiefenthaler A.M.’89, Ph.D.’91 had been raised on a nearby farm by her warm, supportive family. They worked hard. They prioritized education. And here was the March 1977 National Geographic, with Tutankhamun’s golden funerary mask on its cover. It drew her in. It showed her the world. She was hungry for more.
“When I was little, I wanted to build a house in the field next to the farm where I grew up, so I could always be by my mom,” Tiefenthaler says. “As we all do when we get a little older, we start to dream about our own path.”
Forty-five years later, Tiefenthaler – now CEO of the National Geographic Society – traveled to Egypt for the 100th anniversary celebration of the discovery of King Tut’s tomb. She’s also led universities, such as her nine years as Colorado College president. Yet for all her achievements, Tiefenthaler remains anchored in her beloved Iowa farmland. In that sense, she’s like the current crop of National Geographic Explorers. Under Tiefenthaler, the Society has cemented its dedication to diverse perspectives – to stories, research and conservation led by people who know and care about their community, no matter how small or far from urban centers.
“Authenticity really comes from when people are part of the places they’re working, rather than parachute science or parachute storytelling,” Tiefenthaler says.
While most people know National Geographic from its print and TV offerings, the National Geographic Society is ultimately a nonprofit that writes grants to National Geographic explorers. Historically, Tiefenthaler offers, the idea of an explorer was a white man in a pith helmet, probably standing at the top of a cliff. That’s not the modern National Geographic Explorer. Under Tiefenthaler, the organization deliberately seeks and funds local or Indigenous researchers, storytellers and conservationists.
“Last year, 71 percent of the new awards that we made were non-Americans working in their home regions around the world,” Tiefenthaler says. “We have about 3,000 active explorers and they’re from 141 countries.”
Tiefenthaler joined National Geographic in August 2020, as COVID raged. Learning a complex organization while supporting staff through a pandemic took everything she had, Tiefenthaler admits. As the first woman CEO in National Geographic’s 136-year history, she wanted to make diversity structural. Tiefenthaler hired the Society’s first DEI officer and then built her dream team.
“The pace of change can actually be faster [here] than in academic institutions,” says Kim Waldron, Tiefenthaler’s chief of staff and friend of 30 years. “The staff was ready for it.”
Tiefenthaler is an optimist, Waldron says. Indeed, the Iowa farm girl is still in there, says Tiefenthaler, which can make her trusting, open and sometimes naïve. Even after decades in increasingly visible leadership roles, Tiefenthaler says she gets impostor syndrome. She worries she’ll mispronounce a word. Yet brother Jon Tiefenthaler, who runs the family popcorn farm in Breda, sees an older sister who epitomizes their parents’ insistence on education. Jon has an inquisitive mind as well, in part thanks to big sister Jill’s example. “She’s a walking National Geographic,” says Jon.