(Supported by a founding leadership gift of the Thoits Family)
Marguerite Gong Hancock is passionate about building innovative cultural and educational institutions that inspire, empower, and ignite change.
As the inaugural President and CEO of the Palo Alto Museum, Marguerite is leading the creation of a vibrant new institution that honors the legacy of the past while illuminating a path to the future. Rooted in the city’s rich history and forward-thinking ethos, the Museum will stand as a beacon for bold ideas, transformative innovation, connected communities, and lasting impact.
Over 25 years, Marguerite has been a driving force behind groundbreaking initiatives in Silicon Valley that connect history, technology, business, culture, and community, reaching millions worldwide.
At the Computer History Museum (CHM), Marguerite played an influential role in its ongoing transformation. She founded the Exponential Center—the first museum center focused on entrepreneurship and innovation—and later served as Chief Innovation Officer and Vice President of Programming. In these roles, she led a wide range of pioneering projects, including a documentary on Silicon Valley with a companion high school curriculum, a public television series highlighting women in tech, and the museum’s first traveling exhibition prototype. She produced 96 public events, launched a podcast series with Audible, established a multi-year initiative exploring tech and the future of news, and built a leading oral history collection of venture capitalists (VCs), including personally conducting 33 video interviews of founders and VCs. By linking technological innovation with business, news, online games, sports, art, music, fashion, ethics, and the human experience, she and her team expanded CHM’s relevance and reach from youth to thought leaders.
During her two decades at Stanford University, Marguerite applied her training as a political economist to co-lead interdisciplinary initiatives at the Graduate School of Business and the Institute for International Studies. She led international research teams, lectured and mentored students, advised leaders from more than a dozen nations, and co-edited three books on Silicon Valley and Asian high-tech regions.
A cultural entrepreneur at heart, Marguerite creates experiences that have lasting impact. She has convened briefings for diplomats from more than 30 countries, co-developed a hackathon on a plane that served as a model in Europe and Asia, designed hands-on learning programs used in schools, and built one of America’s most enduring community-led holiday traditions, the Christmas Crèche Exhibit, which she co-founded and co-chairs. Now in its decades-long run, this exhibition in Palo Alto draws over 7,000 visitors annually in just five days.
A Palo Alto native with a global outlook, Marguerite is working with the Board of Directors and building a team to bring the Palo Alto Museum to life as a welcoming space and a powerful platform. A place where innovation, history, and community come together. The Museum will celebrate the people shaping our world, foster meaningful connections from across the street to across the globe, and inspire the next generation of dreamers, doers, and changemakers.
Marguerite holds a BA from Brigham Young University and an MA from Harvard University. She and her husband, Russell Hancock, President and CEO of Joint Venture Silicon Valley, are longtime residents of Palo Alto. They are proud parents and grandparents, with three generations of their family calling this vibrant community home.