Heather Cairns

Despite growing up in Marblehead, Massachusetts, Heather Cairns had a hardscrabble childhood that prepared her to survive being an art student, flight attendant, waitress, bartender, phone book deliverer, corpse transporter, and grad student administrator in Boston, New York, and parts of California. In 1998, the founders of Google hired her to be employee number four of their enterprise born in a Menlo Park ranch-style home, and with her Human Resources help, they built a company that went on to do fairly well.

After six years with Google, she scurried back to New England clutching her stock options like lottery tickets until someone explained that’s not how equity works. Once she learned how to manage money like an adult, she looked in the mirror and asked, “Now what?” The answer: more school, obviously. She enrolled in a graduate program at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Tufts, adding yet another degree to her collection (BFA from MassArt, HR Certificate from UC Berkeley, Baking and Pastry Certificate from Chez Boucher). In reference to the pastry thing, her editor, Jodi Fodor, says, “I took advantage of your generous hospitality for six days, and you didn’t so much as knock out a cupcake. You suck.”

Heather is passionate about helping disadvantaged women, protecting the oceans and the environment, and supporting the creation and preservation of contemporary art, so she directs effort and money to Dress for Success, New England Aquarium, and the Peabody Essex Museum.

She’s a co-founder of Pleasant Street LLC, through which she built senior housing in Marblehead, the hometown she keeps swearing she’ll escape but never does. In her spare time, she cooks, reads, boats, plays pickleball and croquet, and questions the sanity of those who voluntarily endure the suffering involved in writing a book. This will probably not be her last.