Silicon Valley Community Foundation Executive Resigns; Metropolitan Museum Gets New Leader

Executive at Silicon Valley Fund Exits

Mari Ellen Loijens, the top fundraiser at the fast-growing Silicon Valley Community Foundation, resigned on April 19, one day after the Chronicle of Philanthropy reported accounts by 19 former foundation employees alleging abusive and inappropriate behavior. The complaints included charges of public berating and belittling of foundation staff, comments about individuals’ physical appearance, and comments of a sexual nature.

The foundation’s CEO, Emmett Carson, said in a statement that the organization does not “tolerate inappropriate behavior of any kind.”

Within a few days of Loijens’s resignation, the foundation’s Board of Directors announced it had hired two law firms to investigate the allegations.

With $13.5 billion in assets, the Silicon Valley community fund is wealthier than any other grant maker except the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Metropolitan Museum Names New Chief

Max Hollein, director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, has joined the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York as director. He succeeds Thomas Campbell, who stepped down 14 months ago.

The appointment marks the first time in 60 years that the institution has appointed an outsider to the top job. Hollein is known as a successful fundraiser and a champion of digital innovation.

Major Foundation Changes

Nina Stack, president of the New Jersey Council of Grant Makers, will be the next executive director of the $369 million Champlin Foundation. She will succeed Keith Lang, who will retire on June 30 after 18 years at the foundation.

Shawn Escoffery, director of the Strong Local Economies program at the Surdna Foundation, has been named executive director of the Roy and Patricia Disney Family Foundation. The Disney family’s foundation had $124 million in assets in 2015, according to the most recent Form 990 available.

Amy Pollack, chief safety officer at Medtronic, has been named director of maternal, newborn, and child health at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Pollack is also a board-certified doctor in obstetrics, gynecology, and preventive medicine.

Patrick Methvin, deputy director of the Gates Foundation’s postsecondary-success strategy, has been promoted to director of the program, overseeing grants to improve student learning. Before joining the foundation, he was a principal in the Boston Consulting Group’s social-impact and consumer-goods practice areas.

Raikes Foundation Appoints Diversity Leader

Lindsay Hill, a program officer at the Seattle grant maker founded by the former CEO of Microsoft, Jeff Raikes, and his wife, Tricia, has been promoted to director of diversity, equity, and inclusion. She will oversee efforts to advance racial equity across all of the foundation’s organizational practices and program areas, including education and youth homelessness.

More Leadership Changes at Cultural Nonprofits

Ellen Stofan, a consulting senior scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, has been named the director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum. From 2013 to 2016, Stofan was chief scientist at NASA. She will be the first woman to lead the museum.

Michael (Rod) Rodriguez has been tapped to serve as the director of the Global War on Terror Memorial Foundation, a congressionally designated organization that will build a new memorial on the National Mall in Washington. Rodriguez retired from the U.S. Army after 21 years, most of which time he served as a Special Forces Green Beret. He is also executive ambassador of the Green Beret Foundation.

More New Leaders

Preethi Herman, country director for India at the Change.org Foundation, has been promoted to be its first global executive director. The organization is the nonprofit arm of Change.org, a website that helps community organizers collect signatures for petitions and lead campaigns in support of human rights and democracy.

Deborah Dubois, chief development officer at the Center for Public Integrity, has been named president of the Opens Doors Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Alvin Herring, director of racial equity and community engagement at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, will return to the PICO National Network as executive director on May 1. He previously worked at the network of faith-based organizations as director of training and formation. Scott Reed, who has led PICO for 41 years, will retire on June 1.

Robert Smith, senior director for corporate responsibility and president of the Eli Lilly and Company Foundation, has been appointed vice president for community development at the Lilly Endowment, effective July 1. Smith will succeed Wallace (Ace) Yakey Jr., who is retiring from the $10.3 billion foundation in June.

Guiomar García-Guerra, founding executive director of the Flamboyan Foundation, has been named the first executive director of the Bravo Family Foundation. Created by the financier Orlando Bravo, the Puerto Rico foundation has pledged $25 million to help rebuild in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

Jeff Cohen, the former editor of the Houston Chronicle, has been tapped as executive vice president for communications at the Laura and John Arnold Foundation.

Legacies

William Beinecke, the first chairman of the charity that later became the Central Park Conservancy, died on April 8. He was 103. Beinecke spearheaded a movement to clean up Central Park in the late 1970s and also served as chairman of the Hudson River Foundation.

Richard Oldenburg, who was director of the Museum of Modern Art from 1972 until his retirement in 1995, died April 17. He was 84. During his tenure, he oversaw the New York museum’s campaign to double its gallery space as well as exhibitions of major works by Cézanne, Matisse, and Picasso.