President & CEO, Central Carolina Community Foundation
Former Chair, Richland County Library
JoAnn Turnquist has held leadership positions with the Clorox Company, Procter and Gamble and JohnsonDiversey. She moved from the corporate world to the world of philanthropy more than a decade ago. As the President & CEO of Central Carolina Community Foundation, she heads up a $140 million dollar charitable organization with donors throughout the Midlands. She said, “while it’s fabulous to have a great career and watch people around you succeed, the opportunity to give back to a community…. to see the impact on your work on communities was the driving reason for me to make the change.” When the thousand-year flood hit South Carolina in 2015, she helped Governor Haley establish the One SC Fund to provide grants to support disaster recovery projects across the state.
Her advice for young people: “Trust yourself. Trust your instincts. Be as courageous as possible in tuning out both your own inner voice that says I can’t do it, and other voices that ask you, why are you trying this?”
About the Recipient
JoAnn Turnquist is President & CEO of Central Carolina Community Foundation, a $140MM nonprofit charitable organization that connects donors in the Midlands with the full spectrum of charitable and nonprofit organizations in their communities. Prior to joining the Foundation in 2009, JoAnn held a number of sales leadership assignments with Fortune 500 companies including Procter & Gamble, JohnsonDiversey and The Clorox Company, where she served as the first female Vice President for US Institutional Sales.
JoAnn is actively involved in many community organizations. She is active on the boards of the United Way of the Midlands, Together SC, and the New Morning Foundation. She previously served as Chair of the Richland Library and, during Governor James Hodges’ administration, Chair of the South Carolina Mansion Foundation.
JoAnn has received EngenuitySC’s Vision award, given annually to an individual displaying exceptional drive in elevating the organization’s mission to have a more competitive and prosperous Midlands, South Carolina Public Relations Society of America’s Executive Excellence award and Girl Scouts Mountains to Midlands’ Woman of Distinction award. She is also the recipient of the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce’s inaugural Palmetto Vision award for Excellence in Community Diversity. In 2018 she was inducted into Columbia Business Monthly’s Inaugural Top 50 Hall of Fame. JoAnn is a 2011 graduate of Leadership Lexington and a 2013 Riley Institute Diversity Fellow, an initiative of the Riley Institute at Furman University.
Turnquist began her undergraduate studies at Northwestern University and received a B.A. in City Planning at The Ohio State University. She lives in Columbia with her husband, Ernie Csiszar.
About Women Vision SC
Women Vision SC is a program that focuses on issues affecting women throughout the state and the nation and a new generation of young people pursuring public service for their communities and the state at large. The program is produced and hosted by former SCETV president Linda O’Bryon.