Rockefeller Foundation Picks Briton
The Rockefeller Foundation on Monday named Gordon Conway, vice chancellor of the University of Sussex in England, as its new president, the first time the post has gone to a non-U.S. citizen.
His selection “underlines the [foundation’s] commitment to a global agenda,” Conway said in an interview. “What we are looking to do is synthesize domestic and international [programs] which have been traditional in the foundation, start to look at all we do with a global lens.”
Conway, 59, is an agricultural ecologist. He is a former Ford Foundation representative for India, Sri Lanka and Nepal, and spent 12 years as an administrator and professor at England’s Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine. He has written more than 100 papers, monographs and books on applied ecology, resource and environmental management and international development.
Conway replaces Peter C. Goldmark Jr., who is leaving the foundation at his own request.
The Rockefeller Foundation, founded 84 years ago by oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, is one of the nation’s oldest philanthropic organizations with assets of $2.8 billion.
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