Sisterhood Spotlight

You and your husband were true digital pioneers. Tell us what attracted you to the industry and how you got your start?

I started with the nation’s first consumer online service, The Source, which was headquartered near Tysons Corner in Virginia. This was pre-Internet, so the online offerings were all text-based — so no pictures or graphics, just text on a screen that included email, conferencing and content ranging from an encyclopedia to stock quotes. In those early days, network speeds were S-L-O-W. How slow? It would have taken forty hours to download the average song! And it was expensive. Still, underlying this slow, expensive service was a really powerful idea: democratizing access to information and communication.

And it was that idea—never mind the kinks—that drove many of us at the dawn of the Internet age, and it attracted followers. These services had the potential to level the playing field in a way that could change the way people lived, worked and played. But some iteration was needed.

After a few years at GE trying to build an (unsuccessful) online service for them, I got a call from a new startup in Tysons Corner that was to become AOL. I jumped at the chance to join this fledgling young company and to help build a whole new, next-generation online service offering that featured consumer-friendly pricing, appealing graphic interfaces and a “membership” approach that encouraged engagement, feedback and a sense of community. And it worked!

After early struggles, this Tysons Corner-based company hit a tipping point, and people jumped on—a lot more people. When we got started, only 3% of people were online, and they were online 1 hour a week! But we grew the service to the point where, at its peak, AOL carried 50% of the nation’s Internet traffic and was the first Internet company to go public. It was truly thrilling to bring the Internet to the masses and to do so in a place we loved — Virginia!

Today, among other things, you oversee the Case Foundation. What does it mean to follow your principal motivation to “Be Fearless”?

My husband, Steve, and I started the Case Foundation in 1997 with a fearless mission: to invest in people and ideas that can change the world. This means we’re always investigating and experimenting to find the best ideas out there, the best leaders, the best models for innovation. To help us better understand the core qualities or “secret sauce” of those that break through, we hired a team of experts that propelled those rare leaders, organizations and movements to success. They discovered five principles that are consistently present when transformational breakthroughs take place.

To spark change, you must:

1. Make a Big Bet
2. Be Bold, Take Risks
3. Make Failure Matter
4. Reach Beyond Your Bubble
5. Let Urgency Conquer Fear

I dig deeper into what each of these principles mean to you and me and share lots of inspiring examples of these principles in action in my book, but these five principles can be summarized in the first two words of the title: Be Fearless. Taken together, they form a road map for effective changemaking for people from all walks of life, but it’s important to note that they aren’t “rules.” They don’t always work in tandem or sequentially, and none is more important than another. Think of them as a set of markers that can help identify when decisions are being made fearlessly.

It is this spirit that drives all of our decisions at the Case Foundation — and really all of the endeavors Steve and I undertake — and is a key trait we look for in the people we hire and the projects we back and fund.

Virginia’s wine industry is making a name for itself in national and international circles. Please tell us a bit about your focus on Virginia’s culinary and wine industries.

One of my greatest pleasures has been to help lead our amazing team at Early Mountain Vineyards in Madison, Virginia. Our vision is to create exceptional wines that can compete with the best wines around the world. We feel great about our progress to date as Early Mountain has received numerous accolades for our wines, including being nominated among only 5 American wineries for American Winery of the Year by Wine Enthusiast, and having our Chardonnay named among the “100 Best Wines in the World” by famed wine expert James Suckling.

But making great wines is just part of what we do — we love creating unique and wonderful experiences for our guests who come to visit us in Madison. Whether enjoying the culinary delights of Chef Tim Moore or relaxing in our tasting room or outside overlooking the Shenandoah mountains, we try to reflect our focus on quality and excellence in all we do.

Although very unique for a winery, throughout this journey, we have sought to also shed a light on the wide range of quality wines that are now being produced across the Commonwealth, highlighting them through our Best of Virginia program at the winery and by introducing a wine club that includes a wide range of these wines. And we believe that great wine is also a wonderful way to highlight the impressive farm-raised produce from the region and the excellent chefs that cook around the state. I am particularly proud of EMV’s own executive chef, Tim Moore, and his team as they have developed a menu that both pairs wonderfully with our wines and stands on its own as, I think, some of the finest cuisine available in Virginia. I hope that you will visit EMV’s tasting room for both great wines and wonderful food that highlights our commitment to “Virginia through and through.”

What led you to pursue global environmental work, and what have been some of the proudest accomplishments you’ve been a part of?

As Chairman of the Board of the National Geographic Society, illuminating and protecting the wonder of our world is front and center in my life every day. The Explorers we fund and the team at Base Camp (our name for our Washington, DC headquarters) are truly committed to exploring, understanding and crafting solutions to some of the world’s most significant challenges, including climate change and the impact it has on communities across the globe. But we are equally as passionate about wonder and discovery, as has been an important part of our work since National Geographic was founded in Washington, DC 135 years ago. I really couldn’t be prouder of their work and impact.

Related, I’m particularly inspired by the spirit and commitment that the next generation brings to care for our planet. I’ve been so pleased to have been able to support and back a number of younger entrepreneurs in this space through my decades long commitment to impact investing. All investing has an impact, and I have tried to be particularly focused on those young startups and entrepreneurs who want to bring both a financial AND social return to investors through their products and services and the companies they lead. It’s an exciting time for startups — both for-profit and nonprofit, who are out there every day finding new solutions to big challenges. I love the opportunity to support them both in big and small ways.

I am a woman of faith, and that faith has instilled in me a commitment and responsibility that we all do what we can to be good stewards of our world, both in our lifetime and for future generations. At my farm in Virginia, I am reminded of this everyday — whether it is the morning songs of the birds, the clean air I breathe or the humbling view of the spectacular, forested Shenandoah mountains in view – that we must protect and steward what we have been given. And while big efforts of protection and conservation really matter, so does the individual act of every person on the planet.

As a leader among Virginia’s Women+girls (W+g), what might you tell your younger self to ensure a life of meaning?

I probably would tell myself to “cut yourself a break,” since I had a very strong work ethic and sense of responsibility to do both well and good in this world, thanks to my amazing single Mom and my immigrant grandparents. But somehow I confused that message with a sense that I had to be perfect, and I was very hard on myself when I fell short. Sometimes this kept me from jumping into things where I wasn’t sure I could be “perfect.” While my faith teaches me to pursue “excellence in all things,” the truth is that can be inhibiting. At my age and stage, I now embrace the idea of being more fearless and accepting that some things we‘ll try and possibly see failure, or certainly miss the mark of perfection. Now I delight in trying things where I’m not sure I can be great, and life is much richer for it. It’s a hard thing to embrace when you are just getting started, but for what it’s worth, I wish I had embraced this way of living much earlier.

About Jean Case

Jean Case, Chairman of National Geographic and CEO of the Case Impact Network, is a businesswoman, investor, philanthropist and impact investing pioneer who believes in the power of business to do good, advocating for the embrace of a Be Fearless approach to innovate and bring about transformational breakthroughs. Her career in the private sector, including as a senior executive at AOL, spanned nearly two decades before co-founding the Case Foundation in 1997.

Jean founded the Case Impact Network in 2020 to usher in a new era of more inclusive capitalism and launched For What It’s Worth (FWIW) in 2021 creating the go-to source for new investors looking to confidently invest for both profit and purpose. Jean, who serves on the boards of National Geographic Partners and the White House Historical Association among others, authored the national bestseller Be Fearless: 5 Principles for a Life of Breakthroughs and Purpose.