Vivian Riefberg

Professor of Practice| University of Virginia Darden School of Business

Vivian Riefberg is a Professor of Practice at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia where she holds a David C. Walentas Jefferson Scholars Chair. For over 31 years she was with McKinsey & Company where she is now an Emeritus Director. She is also a board member of Signify Health, Johns Hopkins Medicine, K Health as well as an advisory board member to the National Education Equity Lab.

In her time at McKinsey Vivian held a variety of senior positions including as leader of the Public Sector Practice for the Americas, and co-leader of the US Health Care Services practice. She served on McKinsey & Company’s global Board of Directors and on committees evaluating and helping develop the global senior partners.

Vivian has led major strategy development, performance improvement, organizational and operational programs across various participants in the private, public and non-profit sectors. She has worked across a range of public and private sector arenas including healthcare, security, infrastructure, and commerce.

Vivian is a frequent keynote speaker at numerous conferences and contributor to leading industry publications authoring many articles on government productivity and improving US healthcare. She has been active in initiatives and research on women’s leadership in the workplace and gender diversity. Most recently the Virginia Economic Review published a piece authored by Vivian “Potential permanent health care changes: Covid-19 longer term impact”. She has also been part of several Darden Ideas to Action articles including “4 Vaccine Rollout Challenges and Recommendations.”  Vivian is also a co-author on the McKinsey Global Institute Report: “The power of parity: Advancing women’s equality in the United States,” and an op-ed in Time Magazine, “5 Myths about America’s gender gap.”

In 2018 Vivian was elected as a general director to the board of the Public Broadcasting System (PBS). In the past she served as a founding board member on the Board of Directors of the Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA), an independent, nonpartisan organization that mobilizes support for efforts to solve the child obesity challenge as an outgrowth of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign.

In addition, Vivian served from 2000-2004 on the NIH Clinical Center Board of Governors and from 2004-2006 as a member of the NIH Advisory Board for Clinical Research. She also served on the Board of Directors of Mentors, Inc., a program for D.C. public high school students.

Vivian has a B.A., magna cum laude in history from Harvard-Radcliffe College and a M.B.A. with distinction from Harvard Business School.