Jennifer Breheny Wallace

Jennifer Breheny Wallace (FAN ’23, ’26) is an award-winning journalist and bestselling author whose work explores the power of mattering in our everyday lives. Through research and storytelling, Wallace examines the hidden forces shaping modern life, from the crisis of meaning in achievement culture to the essential role of mattering in personal, workplace, and societal health.

Her first book, Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic — And What We Can Do About It, was a New York Times bestseller, an Amazon Best Book of the Year, and a Next Big Idea selection. Her new book is 2026’s Mattering: The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose.

Wallace is the founder of The Mattering Institute, whose mission is to create cultures of mattering in workplaces and communities, and co-founder of The Mattering Movement, a nonprofit whose mission is to create cultures of mattering in schools and educational spaces.

Wallace has collaborated with Calm, the meditation and mental health app, to create a multi-year initiative centered on maternal mental health. She has also partnered with The LEGO Group on its global Play Unstoppable campaign, aimed at addressing perfectionism and growing confidence through play.  Wallace has consulted with Netflix and is a BCG  BrightHouse Luminary. She serves on the University of Michigan’s Well-being Collective Advisory Council, and the Advisory Board for Making Caring Common, a project of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Wallace is a Journalism Fellow at The Center for Parent and Teen Communication at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She is also serving as a guest lecturer for NYU’s Fall 2025 course, “Education, Mattering, and the American Dream: Understanding Achievement Culture.”

After graduating from Harvard College, Wallace was a broadcast producer for CBS 60 Minutes and was part of the team that won The Robert F. Kennedy Awards for Excellence in Journalism. She is a contributor to The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post and frequently appears on national television programs to discuss her work.

Wallace serves on the board of the Coalition for the Homeless in New York City.