Kris Putnam-Walkerly

Kris Putnam-Walkerly is a trusted advisor to the world’s leading philanthropists. For over 25 years, ultra-high-net-worth donors, foundations, Fortune 500 companies, celebrity activists, and wealth advisors have sought her advice to transform their giving and catapult their impact.

As an award-winning philanthropy advisor and president of Putnam Consulting Group, she’s helped hundreds of philanthropists strategically allocate over a billion dollars in grants and gifts. Kris’s clients include the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, J.M. Smucker Company, Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, Heising-Simons Foundation, Annie E. Casey Foundation, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Walton Family Foundation, Fujitsu, Blue Shield of California, and Avery Dennison Foundation, among many others.

A thought leader in transformational giving®, Kris has been named one of America’s Top 20 Philanthropy Speakers for the past three years, a "Business Excellence in Philanthropy" award winner (M&A Today Global Awards), “Philanthropy Advisor the Year” (LUXLife Magazine), “Most Influential Philanthropy Advisor” (Global Excellence Awards), and “Best Philanthropy Advisor of the Year” (Lawyer International’s Legal 100 Awards). She also won the “Philanthropy Advice” award by Family Wealth Report.

Kris is the author of Delusional Altruism and Confident Giving; a Forbes contributor on philanthropy; a global philanthropy content partner to Alliance Magazine; and the US philanthropy expert to the leading Dutch philanthropy media outlet De Dikke Blauwe.

She has provided expert commentary about philanthropy to the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Washington Post, Entrepreneur, NPR’s Marketplace Morning Report, Philanthropy News Digest, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR), Financial Advisor Magazine, Wealth Management, and more.

Kris was inducted into the Million Dollar Consulting® Hall of Fame, helped launch the National Network of Consultants to Grantmakers and has served on the boards of the Community Foundation of Lorain County (OH) and the Horizons Foundation.