Heather Larkin
President & CEO, Arkansas Community Foundation
About me: I joined the Arkansas Community Foundation in 1998. In 2022, I was named Woman of the Year in Philanthropy by the Women’s Foundation of Arkansas and was recognized as one of the top 20 Influential Women in Arkansas by Arkansas Business. I am a native of Charleston, Arkansas, and attended Hendrix College. Upon graduating, I went to work for Ernst and Young LLP as a certified public accountant. I later graduated from the UA Little Rock Bowen School of Law where I served on the law journal editorial board. I am a member of the Hendrix Athletic Hall of Honor and a graduate of Leadership Greater Little Rock Class XIX and of Leadership Arkansas Class I.
Lives/Works in: Little Rock
Best Career Advice: “It is most often better to be effective rather than to be right,” from friend and mentor Jerry Adams of Conway.
Lesson Learned the Hard Way: Meet people where they are, not where you wish them to be.
Proudest Moment of Impact: Just recently, I was in Cherokee Village listening to local nonprofit grantees share how they were working to make Sharp County a better place to live. This same story happens all the time in communities across the state — local people committed to making a positive impact — and the Community Foundation gets to be a small part of that.
Call to Action: When people believe the solutions to our greatest challenges can be summed up in a meme or a social media post, it is time for them to dig deeper. I wish more folks would talk to people in their local community who are involved in whatever issue they care most about and realize any solution will be multifaceted.
What Keeps Me Motivated: Arkansas. I love this state.
TOP 100 WOMEN OF IMPACT IN ARKANSAS 2023
A Women’s Foundation of Arkansas Initiative