EXIT INTERVIEW
NEW CHIEF EXECUTIVES
Where she’s going: Kimberly Wright-Violich,
53, steps down June 30 as president of Schwab
Charitable, a San Francisco group that offers
donor-advised funds—a sort of charity checking account. Her three children all are college-bound, she says, and “this may be the last summer we’re all together. For me, the magic will
be if I can get three months for myself and my
family and then I find something. I want some
downtime.”
Why she’s leaving: Ms. Wright-Violich, who
started with Schwab Charitable in 1999, six
months after it was founded, says she was advised early in her career to “repot” herself every 10 years, and she believes it’s time. To her,
the best part of any new experience is the beginning, when there’s a steep learning curve.
“When you are in a job a long time it becomes
easier to do,” she says. “Even though we are still
doing creative things, I am of the age when I
probably only have one or two more big ones in
me.”
JAMES CUNO
CHRISTOPHER IRION
EMILY FORHMAN
but we also wanted to invest in the online experience for our donors.”
Biggest accomplishment: Taking her organization from its startup stages and expanding it
into one of the nation’s biggest charities. Since
its founding it has attracted more than 13,000
donor-advised funds, which allow people to set
up a charity account, get an immediate tax
break, and decide over time where to give their
money. It has received $5-billion in contributions since 1999, and awarded grants to 50,000
charities.
Background: After graduating from Stanford
University, she worked in sales, real-estate development, and family businesses. She quit in
the early 1990s to raise her children, and was
soon serving on several nonprofit boards, including that of KQED, a public television and radio
station in Northern California. A friend told her
about Schwab’s new philanthropic project when
she was ready to return to paid work, she says.
TODD SHERER
Salary: $300,000 in salary, plus other fringe
benefits.
Biggest challenges: “There’s always great tension between reinvesting in the business and
keeping administrative fees low,” she says. “We
wanted to maximize the money going to charity,
Her next step: “I want to explore the possibility of a social-impact enterprise, but it may not
be the only thing I want to do.”
Dallas Women’s Foundation: Roslyn Dawson Thompson, former chief
executive officer of Dawson, Murray,
and Teague Communications
J. Paul Getty Trust: James Cuno,
former director of the Art Institute of
Chicago
Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research: Todd Sherer,
former chief program officer
Moyer Foundation: Kevin Sullivan,
former regional chief executive officer of the American Red Cross, Central New Jersey Region
OMB Watch: Katherine McFate, former program officer for government
performance and accountability at
the Ford Foundation
Patrick P. Lee Foundation: Mark
O’Donnell, former vice president at
International Motion Control corporation
Spence-Chapin Services to Families and Children: Emily Forhman,
former executive director of Catholic
Big Sisters and Big Brothers
Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation: Rob Hinkle,
former chief operations officer at the World Games 2010
Foundation
Volunteers of America-Minnesota: Paula Hart, former
chief executive officer of Dakota Communities
Washington Ballet: Peter M. Branch, former head of the
Georgetown Day School
—MAUREEN WEST LEGACIES
NEW ON THE JOB
Former State Official Takes Over Health Charity
New role: Barbara A. DeBuono, 56, this month
assumes leadership of Orbis International, a
New York group that works to prevent blindness
in developing countries and treat the disease.
Career highlights: Most recently Dr. DeBuono
was the global director of health and social marketing at Porter Novelli, a communications company in New York. She also worked for Pfizer,
a pharmaceutical company, as the executive director for public health and government. From
1994 to 1998 Dr. DeBuono was New York State’s
commissioner of health. She now also works as a
clinical professor at two New York-area medical
schools.
Education: She holds a bachelor’s degree in biology and a medical degree from the University
of Rochester and the University of Rochester
School of Medicine, in New York State, and a
master’s of public health from Harvard University School of Public Health.
Why she was hired: Dr. DeBuono’s medical
background and range of work experience propelled her to the top job at the charity, which expects to raise $100-million this year, says Jack
J. McHale, interim president of Orbis.
Goals: Dr. DeBuono hopes to link the Orbis Fly-
ing Eye Hospital, the
group’s most public
program, to the other
longer-term teaching
and training programs
it provides around the
world. “We don’t want
to be an organization
that duplicates what
others are doing,” she
says. “We want to be
unique.”
Salary: She declined
to disclose it.
Barbara A. DeBuono,
President, Orbis
International
Other nonprofit affiliation: With her sister, Laureen DeBuono,
Dr. DeBuono started the MAIA Foundation in
2007, which has so far made $265,000 in grants
to local nonprofit groups in Rwanda and Uganda
that work to improve maternal and reproductive
health.
Books she’s reading: Enchantment: the Art of
Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions, by Guy
Kawasaki, and The Tiger’s Wife: A Novel, by Téa
Obreht. —NICOLE LEWIS
MORE PEOPLE
Look online for more news about personnel announcements at charities and foundations across
the country.
philanthropy.com/people
Mildred Robbins Leet,
Pioneer in Global Microfinance
COURTESY OF TRICKLE UP FOUNDATION
Age at death: 88
Major philanthropy job: Ms. Leet (pictured, second from right)
served more than 20 years as the first chief executive of Trickle
Up, an international antipoverty charity, in New York. She continued as chair of the group’s governing board until 2006 and as
chair emerita until her death this month.
Other nonprofit roles: Ms. Leet worked and volunteered at dozens of organizations, including the U.S. Committee for the United
Nations Development Fund for Women, which she helped found.
How she made her mark: Ms. Leet and her late husband, Glen
F. Leet, a former president of the Save the Children Federation,
started Trickle Up in 1979 as an alternative to conventional approaches to fighting poverty overseas, which relied on large-scale
aid programs to “trickle down” benefits to the needy. Trickle Up
was among the first U.S. organizations to offer small grants—of
$100 to $225—to help poor people, chiefly women, start their own
businesses. According to the charity, it has helped more than
200,000 entrepreneurs in dozens of countries.
Her front-row seat to history: Active in women’s rights and
civil rights, Ms. Leet stood on the speaker’s platform during Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963. In 1989
she was chosen, along with Mother Teresa, to receive the Women
of the World Award, presented by Princess Diana.
How she will be remembered: William M. Abrams, Trickle
Up’s president, said in an e-mail message to The Chronicle that
Ms. Leet “was both idealist and realist, always able to find a way
to turn her dreams into action.” —DEBRA E. BLUM
