Holly Hassett

Holly spent 25-years at The Hershey Company starting in 1978 when she opened their Washington, D.C. Corporate office after working on Capitol Hill as a Legislative Assistant for a member of the US House of Representatives after college. She served as Manager of Hershey's Washington Office until 1992 when she was named Director of Federal Government Relations. In 1994 she relocated to Corporate Headquarters in Hershey, PA to manage international, federal, state and local government relations programs for the company. Holly retired from The Hershey Company in June of 2002 as Vice President of Government Relations and an officer of the corporation.

Since her retirement from The Hershey Company, Holly has worked as a Consultant, Board Member and Advisor providing strategic guidance to corporate, trade association and non- profit clients seeking to influence the political process on a broad range of public policy issues. She currently serves on the Council of National Advisors for Springboard Enterprises, which is the premier platform where entrepreneurs, investors and industry experts come together to build great women-led businesses by educating, coaching and supporting high growth companies seeking equity capital for expansion.

Holly is also actively involved with non-profit organizations that emphasize youth leadership and literacy. She serves on the boards of the Washington-Ireland Program and the South African-Washington International Program, which inspire, prepare and support the next generation of leaders in these two post-conflict countries by providing summer internships and leadership training in Washington, DC to outstanding university students. Holly also donates her time with the DC Chapter of Room to Read, an organization which promotes literacy and empowers girls by building libraries and schools and providing books and scholarships to girls in 12 countries in the developing world. She also supports the Posse Foundation, which recruits promising high school students from diverse, disadvantaged backgrounds and provides them with full 4-year university scholarships, and she currently mentors a Posse student from an inner city DC school who is the first in his family to attend college.