Governor Scott has appointed Wendy Knight of Panton to serve a four-year term on the Vermont Commission on Women (VCW), the state’s non-partisan commission working to advance rights and opportunities for women and girls.
Commissioner Knight is a communications and marketing executive with over 20 years of government, corporate and entrepreneurial experience in advertising and marketing, food and beverage, healthcare, media, non-profit, and the publishing industries.
She’s held several leadership positions in Governor Scott's Administration, as Vermont Tourism and Marketing Commissioner, as a strategic lead for the state's economic development initiative Think Vermont, and as Vice Chair of the Vermont Outdoor Recreation Economic Collaborative, a private-public initiative to grow the economy and preserve our natural resources. With this background in economic development, a focus that draws her to the work of the VCW is ensuring that women have economic opportunities and fiscal independence.
A former freelance journalist for the New York Times, she has written four non-fiction books and appeared on NPR, CNN, and ABC News. Her current work includes writing about domestic violence, a topic featured in her powerful and personal op-ed in USA Today about children living in abusive homes during the COVID-19 quarantine.
Commissioner Knight is the Chief Marketing Officer of Knight Automotive and a consultant to On the Fly, a women-led collective supporting Vermont's hospitality and tourism businesses negatively impacted by COVID-19. She currently serves on the boards of the Vermont Futures Project, which provides data and research to achieve long-term economic growth in our state, and the Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance.
She is a former Select Board Member for the town of Panton and a graduate of Cornell University.