Marianne Alexander, PhD, was PLEN’s first executive director and over the course of PLEN’s 40-year history, served as a leader and advocate for the organization. After leading Goucher’s campus-based PLEN programs, Marianne was selected as the executive director in 1986 and led the effort to establish PLEN as an independent non-profit in Washington, DC in the late 1980s.Throughout PLEN's history, she has played an invaluable role in the lives of many young women as they got their start here.