The Main Event: Building a More Just World Through Philanthropy

Dr. Judith Rodin

Judith Rodin is a pioneer, innovator, change-maker, and global thought-leader. For over two decades, Dr. Rodin led and transformed two global institutions: The University of Pennsylvania and The Rockefeller Foundation. Her leadership at Rockefeller ushered in a new era of strategic philanthropy that emphasized large-scale partnerships with business and government to address and solve the complex challenges of the 21st century and championed two new fields that are at the forefront of current thinking: resilience and impact investing.

Dr. Rodin has served as a board member of nine leading public companies, including Citigroup, Comcast, and Aetna, as well as numerous venture-capital-backed startups, and nonprofits including The Brookings Institution. She has been the recipient of 19 honorary doctorate degrees, numerous prestigious honors, and is a sought-after speaker for influential global forums including The World Economic Forum, the United Nations General Assembly, and the Vatican Global Forum. Dr. Rodin has authored more than 200 academic articles and chapters, and has written or co-written 15 books, including The Resilience Dividend: Being Strong in a World Where Things Go Wrong and her most recent title from Wharton School Press, Making Money Moral: How a New Wave of Visionaries is Linking Purpose and Profit.

Carol Saal

Carol has made volunteerism, leadership, and philanthropy a serious career and has applied her entrepreneurial skills to countless Jewish and non-Jewish causes. Among her many charitable endeavors, she was a founding member of the Center for Clinical Immunology at Stanford University Medical Center—an initiative designed to enable bench-to-bedside research in autoimmune diseases. She was an active fundraiser for the Arthritis Foundation’s Northern California regional chapter and was a parent-founder of the country’s fifth Ronald McDonald House affiliated with the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.

Carol was American Associates Ben-Gurion University’s (BGU) 13th president, serving four terms and earned an honorary doctoral degree. In May 2012, she was appointed a vice-chair of BGU’s Board of Governors in Israel after serving as a governor for more than two decades.

She and her husband Harry have supported numerous projects and causes, including an auditorium in the Alon Hi-Tech building, student scholarships, the American Associates Student Village at the University’s Sde Boker campus, and most recently supporting the expansion of cybersecurity research.

Her great passion in the local Jewish community is the Oshman Family JCC at the Taube Koret Campus for Jewish Life. She was the driving force in raising a significant amount of money to build the new Center and served as president of the board when the project was initiated. She and her family named the Town Square for their daughter Jessica who passed away in 2004. She was made an honorary lifetime board member in 2016.

Her Federation involvement has spanned over 35 years, including service as a board member, officer, Endowment Fund committee member, and overall Bay Area campaign chair for two years. In 2005, she was honored with the Judith Chapman Memorial Women’s Leadership Award.

Carol helped Harry launch two high-tech companies, including Network General Corp. where she worked as a marketing manager until her retirement in 1992. They have two children, Nathaniel and Jessica (z”l), and two grandchildren, Jared and Dalia.

Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild

Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild is a Founding and Managing Partner of Inclusive Capital Partners, an investment manager for the $1.5B Spring Fund, that seeks positively differentiated returns by deploying its governance skills and value investment discipline to improve environmental and societal performance of the businesses in which it invests. Until July 2020, she was Chief Executive of E.L. Rothschild LLC, a family office with interests in private companies, public markets, and real estate. She is also the Founder of the Coalition for Inclusive Capitalism, a not-for-profit that develops groundbreaking initiatives with global CEOs and distinguished leaders in government and civil society to catalyze actions that transform capitalism and make our economies and societies more inclusive, dynamic, sustainable, and trusted.

Since 2000, Lynn has been a member of the Board of Directors and Nominating & Governance Committee of The Estee Lauder Companies. She has also served on the Boards of The Economist Group, Gulfstream, General Instruments, Bronfman-Rothschild, and Weather Central. As part of her charity work, she sits on the Board and Executive Committee of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the Advisory Board of Focusing Capital on the Long Term (“FCLT”), the McCain Institute for International Leadership, and the ERANDA Rothschild Foundation (de Rothschild family foundation), and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Chatham House.

Previously, she served as a member of the National Information Infrastructure Advisory Committee and the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board under President Clinton, and as a member of the United Nations Advisory Committee on Inclusive Financial Services (2006-2011).

Lynn is often a featured speaker at global forums and corporate and university events, including at the United Nations, World Bank, G20 Investor Forum, OECD, Swiss Re, Temasek, Bloomberg, University of Oxford, Tsinghua University, and Peking University. She has also published in The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Guardian. In 2007, Lynn was awarded the Commendatore Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana. She graduated Magna cum Laude and Beta Kappa from Pomona College in Claremont, CA (1976) and from Columbia University School of Law, NYC (1980) with a Juris Doctor with honors (Harlen Fiske Stone Scholar).