Carrie Walton Penner

Carrie Walton Penner (born August 12, 1970) is the granddaughter of Sam Walton the founder of Walmart, and the daughter of former company chairman S. Robson Walton.

Walton Penner is a powerful influence in the charter school movement.

She attended private school at The Governor's Academy in Newbury, Massachusetts. She graduated prep school in 1988, and then went to Georgetown, and studied economics and history. In the mid-1990s, she was involved in education issues and earned a master's degree in Education Policy and Program Evaluation at Stanford University.

Walton-Penner has been an education program officer for the Walton Family Foundation, an evaluator for the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship and served internships at the Rockefeller Foundation, Aaron Diamond Foundation, and Academy for Educational Development. She was also a research analyst for an evaluation of the Michigan Mathematics and Science Centers for Woodside Research Consortium.

Walton-Penner is married to Greg Penner, who was named the Chairman of Walmart in 2015. They met while attending Georgetown University as undergraduates. They have four children and live in Atherton, California.

She is on the board of KIPP Foundation, Alliance for School Choice, and Charter School Growth Fund.