Month: August 2024

Mary C. Henry spent 18 years at Goldman Sachs, primarily as a communications technology analyst in the Firm’s Investment Research Division. A top-ranked analyst for many years, she was named a Partner and Managing Director of the Firm in 1996. During her tenure at Goldman Sachs, Mary was personally involved in company financings that totaled tens of billions of dollars and well as strategic projects. She collaborated with research, investment banking and private equity colleagues to evaluate companies in technology and communications services worldwide and worked extensively with major institutional investors around the world. She retired from the Firm in 2004. Since then, she has served on corporate and educational boards and has devoted time to education philanthropy. She is on the Investment Committee and the Retirement Plan Advisory Committee of Sacred Heart Schools, Atherton and active with the Woodside High School Foundation. Mary graduated from Northwestern University with an undergraduate degree in economics and a graduate degree in journalism.

Chuck Harris planned and oversaw the execution and advancement of Blue Meridian Partners’ strategy and operations while leading efforts to engage new philanthropic Partners and to support their engagement. In his previous role as an EMCF Portfolio Manager and its Director of Capital Aggregation, Chuck managed relationships with various grantees and oversaw the Foundation’s capital aggregation activities, notably the True North Fund. Before joining the Foundation, Chuck co-founded and served for five years as Executive Partner of SeaChange Capital Partners, a financial intermediary designed to enhance the flow of capital to outstanding nonprofits serving children and youth in low-income communities in the United States. Chuck spent 23 years in the banking business before retiring in 2002 from his position as a partner and managing director at Goldman Sachs, where he served as co-head of Corporate Finance in the Americas. He has served extensively on the boards of nonprofit and philanthropic organizations as well as privately held and publicly traded for-profit corporations. He is a graduate of Harvard College and holds a master’s degree in finance from MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

Ben Ginsberg, a nationally known political law advocate representing participants in the political process, is the Volker Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and co-chair of two nonprofits aiding election officials enhance confidence in American elections – the Pillars of the Community project and the Election Officials Legal Defense Network.

His clients have included political parties, political campaigns, candidates, members of Congress and state legislatures, governors, corporations, trade associations, PACs, vendors, donors and individuals. He represented four of the last six Republican Presidential nominees. His representations ranged across a variety of election law and regulatory issues, including voting issues and elections, federal and state campaign finance laws, recounts and contests, government investigations, election administration and redistricting. Ben served as co-chair of the bipartisan Presidential Commission on Election Administration which produced a much-lauded report on best practices and recommendations for state and local officials to make U.S. elections run better.

His academic background includes being a Lecturer in Law at Stanford Law School, an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and a Fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics. He appears frequently on television as an on-air commentator about the law and politics and has written numerous articles on U.S politics.

He served as national counsel to the 2000 and 2004 Bush-Cheney presidential campaigns and played a central role in the 2000 Florida recount. In 2012 and 2008, he served as national counsel to the Romney for President campaign. He has represented the campaigns and leadership PACs of numerous members of the Senate and House as well a partner at Jones Day from 2014 to 2020 and at Patton Boggs for 23 years before that.

Prior to entering law school, Ben spent five years as a newspaper reporter at The Boston Globe, Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, The Berkshire Eagle (Massachusetts), and The Riverside Press-Enterprise (California).

The founder of the Social Studies Accelerator at Education Leaders of Color, Andrea Foggy-Paxton, has devoted her career to expanding excellence and equity in education in the non-profit sector, including hands-on experience with translating theory into practice and implementing innovative new curricula in the classroom. She served as the Managing Director for Partner Strategy for the Broad Center.

Previously, she was the executive vice president at Reasoning Mind, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing first-rate math instruction for all students and worked for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, developing and managing innovations in professional development, high-school transformation, college completion and personalized-learning grants. Previously, she served in leadership roles at the Tavis Smiley Foundation, L.A. Youth at Work, Rock the Vote, and Freedom Schools. She is currently a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Education and the Greater Los Angeles Education Foundation Board.

Jay O’Connor is a senior software industry executive with a track record of driving extremely rapid growth, helping transform young businesses into industry leaders, and helping create two multi-billion dollar businesses.

O’Connor currently serves as CEO of Voices, a software company that operates the largest voice marketplace in the world and provides AI voice solutions. He also serves as a venture partner at Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital.

Previously, as SVP of Worldwide Marketing at NetSuite (NYSE: N), he led the marketing team that grew revenues nearly sevenfold in less than 4 years, and helped NetSuite become one of the world’s leading software as a service companies and go public with a valuation of $1.6 billion.

Earlier in his career, at Intuit (INTU) he led the marketing and product management team that acquired the first million QuickBooks customers, grew revenues from zero to $80 million in 4 years, grew market share to 72%, and built the foundation for what became a multi-billion dollar business.

O’Connor has a passion for driving rapid growth, creating a “wow” product and customer experience, and building outstanding teams.

Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice, was born in Bronx, New York, on June 25, 1954. She earned a B.A. in 1976 from Princeton University, graduating summa cum laude and a member of Phi Beta Kappa and receiving the Pyne Prize, the highest academic honor Princeton awards to an undergraduate. In 1979, she earned a J.D. from Yale Law School where she served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal. She served as Assistant District Attorney in the New York County District Attorney’s Office from 1979–1984. She then litigated international commercial matters in New York City at Pavia & Harcourt, where she served as an associate and then partner from 1984–1992. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush nominated her to the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, and she served in that role from 1992–1998. In 1997, she was nominated by President Bill Clinton to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit where she served from 1998–2009. President Barack Obama nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on May 26, 2009, and she assumed this role August 8, 2009.

Wendy May-Dreyer, Esq. is the immediate past Board Chair for iCivics and our longest serving board member. Wendy has worked with iCivics for over a decade to grow its national leadership, pursue nonpartisan civic education in our schools, and inspire a new generation toward responsible civic engagement. Her deep desire for a national civics awakening correlates with her Denison Ministries partnership offering a biblical worldview to current events. Wendy is a retired Partner from Hartline Dacus Barger Dreyer LLP in Dallas, Texas, where Wendy spent over 25 years as a trial lawyer representing national and Fortune 500 companies in litigation, crisis management services, policy directives and national product recall campaigns. Wendy also devotes time to child advocacy work through Dallas CASA and World Vision.

Larry Kramer has been President and Vice Chancellor of the London School of Economics and Political Science since 2024. From 2012-2024, he was President of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Under his leadership, the foundation undertook major initiatives and launched new efforts on a range of pressing and timely problems, including climate change, democracy, cybersecurity, disinformation, new economics, racial justice, education, women’s reproductive health and rights, global governance, performing arts, and philanthropy itself. He wrote and spoke extensively on issues related to effective philanthropy, including the importance of collaboration among funders and the need to provide grantees with long-term support. He frequently lectures and writes about broad societal issues, from global climate change to the challenge of maintaining democratic government in the 21^st century.

Before joining the foundation, Larry served from 2004 to 2012 as Richard E. Lang Professor of Law and Dean of Stanford Law School. During his tenure, he spearheaded significant educational reforms, pioneering a new model of multidisciplinary legal studies while enlarging the clinical education program and incorporating a public service ethos. His teaching and scholarly interests include American legal history, constitutional law, federalism, separation of powers, the federal courts, conflict of laws, and civil procedure.

At the start of his career, Larry served as law clerk to U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Henry J. Friendly of the Second Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. Following his clerkships, Larry served as professor of law at the University of Chicago and University of Michigan law schools. He joined the faculty of New York University School of Law in 1994, where he served as Associate Dean for Research and Academics and Russell D. Niles Professor of Law until leaving for Stanford in 2004. Before joining Stanford, he also served as a special consultant for Mayer Brown, LLP.

Larry is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Law Institute. He serves as a director on the boards of a number of nonprofit organizations, including the National Constitution Center, Independent Sector, and the ClimateWorks Foundation.

Larry received an A.B. in Psychology and Religious Studies from Brown University, graduating magna cum laude in 1980, and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, magna cum laude, in 1984. He is the author of numerous articles and books, including “The People Themselves: Popular Constitutionalism and Judicial Review.”