Diversity, thinking outside the box offer templates for guiding CEO transitions at big foundations

Raj Shah, former USAID administrator, will start his next high-profile gig as the president of the Rockefeller Foundation in March, taking the reins from Judith Rodin. She has led Rockefeller, one the world’s largest philanthropic organizations, since 2005. The announcement last month that Shah, 43, will lead the foundation, is the latest sign of notable leadership turnover at foundations operating in the international development arena. Julia Stasch was selected as MacArthur Foundation’s president and CEO in March 2015, after serving as its interim president for several months, following the exit of Robert Gallucci. Darren Walker took over for Luis A. Ubiñas as CEO of the Ford Foundation in 2013. And La June Montgomery Tabron became W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s CEO and president in 2014. In a relatively short period of time, there have been some high-level changes at important philanthropy organizations, leading to questions of both why this is occurring, and what’s involved today with managing a CEO or president transition at a large foundation. There isn’t one simple answer, but timing and diversity are driving factors, experts say. Every foundation is unique, especially in the philanthropy world, where foundations do not necessarily look for the “stereotypical CEO,” said Vikki Spruill, the president and CEO of Council of Foundations, a nonprofit association of foundations and corporations. “So much is driven by the mission of the individual foundation, and of course, the Board of Trustees, who are in charge of hiring and firing foundation CEOs. So it is very specific to an individual foundation, which makes it hard to look at trends,” Spruill said. But there are some consistents on how to best conduct a search for a new CEO that are informing the process. The lead up to and selection of a new CEO requires an understanding of where the individual institution stands and where it is headed, says BoardSource President and CEO Anne Wallestad. “I think there is a tendency among boards to think that the first step is searching, rather than thinking about the moment and understanding where the organization really is, where it is going and what might change, and what they hope might stay the same, before heading into the search,” she said. Often, the work of executing a search is now conducted with the support of a search firm. BoardSource, a U.S. nonprofit that works to strengthen nonprofit board leadership, works with foundations and nonprofits to think about succession planning. The process has a “really, really wide range,” extending to several years in advance in some cases, according to Wallestead. “Some executive boards are planning their transitions literally years in advance and they are talking about those timelines, and even if that is not transparent or visible to the rest of the staff, some folks are talking that far in advance,” she said. “Other transitions are much quicker and that is not necessarily a bad thing, but with the advantage of time you can be really thoughtful about how you are doing your work.” She explained that she has also seen several examples where having a “really long lead up time” for a CEO or president transition isn’t helpful for an institution, particularly if it can leave the organization in a sense of uncertainty for a long period of time. The search and selection of a new president or CEO is accompanied by a mindset recognizing that there’s a need to “make a major shift in the way we are operating, either strategically or culturally,” Wallestead explained. It’s about new ideas and new energy. However, there are also some clear, break-out trends that appear to be guiding the recent succession of foundation leadership, said Spruill and Wallestead. First, there’s the issue of natural turnover. While foundation CEOs tend to stay in their roles for fairly long periods of time, Spruill expects a “silver tsunami” of retirements and other exits in the next few years. “Because many of them came into their roles at similar times, we are going to be seeing more of an exodus because of retirement and what not in the next five years. It’s something like 25 percent of the field will transition within the next five years,” she said. There’s also been a been a continued emphasis on recruiting CEO candidates from a diverse background, according to Spruill. Walker has repeatedly made the connection between his identity as a black, gay man to inequality and poverty — the focus of the Ford Foundation’s work. Shah, the first Indian American to guide Rockefeller, joins Tabron as another new foundation leader of color. Another visible trend is the recruitment of CEOs and presidents from outside the field of philanthropy, as the Center for Effective Philanthropy has shown. The number of CEOs who previously worked in a field outside philanthropy increased from 15 in 2012 to 20 in 2015, they showed in a 2015 study. “I think that is a positive, not coming from another foundation, but other discipline. We are now seeing CEOs coming from all walks of life, which helps enrich the field of philanthropy because we are serving all walks of life,” Spruill said. 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