Courtesy of NYU Center on International Cooperation.
Stephen Heintz to End 25-Year Run Leading Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Stephen Heintz at the Considering the Future event at Ford Foundation.
A changing of the guard at the nation’s most prominent foundations continued Thursday with the announcement that Rockefeller Brothers Fund president and CEO Stephen Heintz — the longest-serving top executive at the 80-year-old grant maker — will step down in 2026.
Heintz, 73, who has led the $1.4 billion grant maker since 2001, positioned RBF as a significant player in efforts to fight climate change, establish peace abroad, and strengthen democracy in the United States. Notably, as the leader of a foundation established by the grandsons of oil magnate John D. Rockefeller, he helped to lead the effort to persuade nonprofits and philanthropy to divest from fossil fuels . A decade after RBF divested, its investment portfolio is 99.7 percent fossil-fuel free.
RBF was also instrumental in behind-the-scenes talks between Iranian and U.S. nongovernmental officials that led to formal negotiations and a 2015 deal to restrict Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
Heintz will leave RBF next spring. The foundation said it will begin a search for his successor later this year.
Read more at The Chronicle of Philanthropy.