Jody Allen

Jo Lynn "Jody" Allen (formerly Jody Patton) is an American businesswoman and philanthropist. She is Microsoft co-founder billionaire Paul Allen's sister and served as the chief executive officer of his investment and project management company, Vulcan Inc., based in Seattle, Washington until October 2015.^[1][2] She is also the co-founder and president of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.^[3]

Biography

Early life and education

Allen is the younger^[4] sister of Paul G. Allen, co-founder of the Microsoft Corporation.^[5] She grew up in Wedgwood, a middle-class neighborhood of Seattle, Washington.^[5] Her mother, Edna Faye Allen, was a Seattle school teacher^[6] and her father, Kenneth Sam Allen, was an associate director of the University of Washington Libraries.^[6] Allen graduated from Lakeside School in 1975^[7] and was a member of the class of 1980 at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, where she studied drama.^[7][8][9]

Career

In 1986, she co-founded Vulcan Inc. with her brother to manage their family's business and charitable endeavors.^[2] Vulcan's former Chief Financial Officer described her as being "responsible for having the trains run on time" and said Allen had "a particular passion for real estate development, building things in general."^[10]

She is the Vice-Chair of First & Goal Inc., which oversees operations of the Seattle Seahawks.^[2] She was involved in negotiating the public-private partnership that led to the construction of CenturyLink Field in Seattle, and was an adviser to her brother when he first considered buying the Seattle Seahawks.^[11][12] In 1997, a Seattle reporter wrote: "Jody Patton thought buying the Seahawks was a great idea; thus was born Allen's efforts to acquire the team and build a new football stadium."^[12]

Allen also supervised building the Moda Center in Portland, Oregon, renovating the Seattle Cinerama, and bringing the EMP Museum to Seattle.^[8]

Allen is president of Vulcan Productions, a company that produces films, digital programs, and outreach initiatives, and has produced or executive produced more than a dozen documentaries and feature films.^[13][14] In 2013, she signed on as a backer of two documentaries, the Richard E. Robbins-directed film Girl Rising and the nuclear power documentary Pandora's Promise.^[15][16]

In 2013, her former security guards accused her of sexual harassment and of smuggling giraffe bones out of Botswana after she went on a safari with her brother.^[17]

Philanthropy

Allen co-founded the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation in 1990.^[3] Since then, the Foundation has given more than $469 million in grants to over 1,400 nonprofit organizations.^[18]

Allen is the President of the Board of Trustees of the EMP Museum in Seattle, a nonprofit museum dedicated to pop culture and music.^[3][19] The Seattle Times credited Allen with helping her brother make EMP a reality: "Although Allen gets most of the credit...it is the brainchild of both these close siblings. Allen provided the money and inspiration; Patton, as executive director, is largely responsible for the vision that made it happen."^[8]

With her brother, Allen co-founded the Allen Institute for Brain Science in 2003 and currently serves as Chairman of the Board for that Seattle non-profit organization, which provides free online public resources to scientists around the world.^[20][21] She serves on the board of the Seahawks Charitable Foundation, and has served on the boards of ArtsFund, the Theatre Communications Group, the University of Washington Foundation, the Museum of Glass, the Los Angeles Film Festival and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.^[3]

Personal life

Allen has three children, including Duncan (born 1989), Gardner (born 1994) and Faye (born 1997) Patton, with Brian Patton, whom she divorced in 2009 after 21 years of marriage.^{[4][8][22][23]} Allen's ex-husband is a golf-course manager.^[23][24] She was known as Jody Patton, Jody Allen Patton and Jo Allen Patton while married.^[8][25][26]

She is a member of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society^[27] and the Explorers Club.^[28]

Today, Allen lives on Mercer Island, Washington, outside of Seattle.^[10]

Filmography

Executive producer

• Men with Guns (1997)^[13][29]
• The Luzhin Defence (2000)^[13][29]
• The Safety of Objects (2001)^[13][29][30]
• The Soul of a Man (2003)^[13][29]
• The Blues (2003)^[13][29][30]
• Lightning in a Bottle (2004)^[13][29][30]
• Hard Candy (2005)^[13][29][30]
• American Masters: No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (2005)^[13][29][30]
• Bickford Shmeckler's Cool Ideas (2006)^[13][29][30]
• Where God Left His Shoes (2007)^[13][29][30]
• Girl Rising (2013)^[31]
• Pandora's Promise (2013)^[15]
• We The Economy (2014) ^[32]

Producer

• Inspirations (1997)^[13][29]
• Me & Isaac Newton (1999)^[13][29]
• Titus (1999)^[13][29]
• Coastlines (2002)^[13][29][30]
• Far from Heaven (2002)^[13][29][30]

References