Hendrik Kranenburg, retired group president for higher education at McGraw-Hill, died suddenly of a heart attack Jan. 17, 2020, while hiking in Grenada. He was 64.
Kranenburg was born in 1955 in New Zealand to Dutch emigrant parents, and was raised and naturalized a citizen in California. In 1976 he graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, and in 1978 he earned an MPA from Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School. He then worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
In 1980 he joined Standard & Poor’s (S&P), a subsidiary of McGraw-Hill. In 1984 he moved to London, opened S&P’s first overseas office, and started its international credit ratings. From 1989 to 1999 he led S&P’s growing international businesses from New York. From 1999 to 2005 he headed S&P’s data services, its other major operation.
In 2006 Kranenburg moved to S&P’s parent, McGraw-Hill, as president of its higher education and international publishing business. He led the company from book distribution into digital-learning services. He retired in 2010.
Kranenburg was a dedicated adviser and board member of several nonprofit organizations. A lifelong churchgoer, he was an ordained Presbyterian elder.
He is survived by his wife, Linda Alice Frankenbach ’74, whom he married in 1990; and two children, including Christopher ’15.
Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.