It’s the philanthropic undertaking of a generation.
In late 2015, upon the birth of their first child, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and his spouse, pediatrician Priscilla Chan, announced that they would dedicate 99 percent of their Facebook holdings — at the time, an estimated $45 billion — to “improving this world.”
Of course, curing infectious disease and reducing gaps in educational achievement via personalized-learning technologies — among other goals the Giving Pledge signers have set for themselves — is more than a two-person job.
Who are the key staff members working alongside Mr. Zuckerberg and Dr. Chan to spend tens of billions of dollars?
Some 20 months in, The Chronicle took stock of the hires at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, or CZI, the umbrella organization the couple established to manage a large share of their philanthropic work. There are veterans of Silicon Valley’s start-up and venture-capital sectors, Washington politicos, education-policy wonks, and at least one philanthropy consultant, among others.
The couple embodies the new wave of West Coast tech philanthropy, with its focus on effectiveness and results. Their decision to center their philanthropic work in a limited-liability company rather than a traditional grant maker is one reflection of that perspective.
Such moves have at least some nonprofit leaders worried: How do they go about cementing support from a generation of donors who see for-profit investments as an equally viable means for tackling social problems? Do these new philanthropists understand how nonprofits operate, and the headwinds they face?
The answers might be many years, and many billions of dollars, in coming. Still, a close look at CZI’s staff shows plenty of ties to long-established and instantly recognizable foundations and charities. The Chronicle pulled together a partial list of major hires at CZI, with an eye to ties to philanthropic institutions.
Vivian Wu
As managing director of ventures, Ms. Wu is overseeing CZI investments in for-profit ed-tech companies, among them MasteryConnect, Ellevation Education, Newsela, and BYJU’s. She spent nearly two decades at venture-capital and private-equity firms such TA Associates and Accel Partners. Ms. Wu is a board member for Caliber Schools, a San Francisco Bay Area charter-school group, and sits on the executive committee of the Harvard Business School alumni board. She formerly served on the board of the Full Circle Fund, a giving circle of Bay Area philanthropists who donate money and time to local nonprofits.
Molly Graham
CZI’s vice president of operations was previously an executive at Bay Area technology companies, including Quip, Facebook, and Google. At Facebook, she developed the company’s compensation and benefits system while overseeing a tripling of staff size, and she later helped expand Facebook’s mobile business. From February 2015 to February 2017 she served on the leadership council at Tipping Point Community, a Bay Area antipoverty charity supported by prominent donors such as Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff.
Caitlyn Fox
CZI’s first employee, hired late in 2015 as chief of staff, Ms. Fox was previously a consultant with the Redstone Strategy Group, working on projects such as helping the David and Lucile Packard Foundation analyze and publicly report on its hundreds of millions of dollars in impact investments. Ms. Fox also worked in strategic planning at the Rockefeller Foundation, helping to develop new areas of work for the grant maker. She now focuses on policy at CZI.
Jim Shelton
Before joining CZI 14 months ago as head of education, Mr. Shelton had already worked with some of the world’s most prominent philanthropists, spending five-plus years as a program director at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. That was followed by stints as assistant deputy secretary and deputy secretary and chief operating officer at the Department of Education, where he helped lead President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper project. When asked in an interview with The Chronicle of Higher Education about the influence of major foundations on education, Mr. Shelton said, “What I hope actually influences the field is data evidence and a learning posture about what works and what doesn’t.”
Josh Wiseman
CZI’s director of engineering is a former Facebook employee. He previously worked for education-technology companies AltSchool and Remind. Mr. Wiseman sits on the board of Teach for America Bay Area, which recruits and trains members for the national teacher corps in Oakland, Richmond, San Francisco, and San Jose.
David Plouffe
Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign manager made headlines in 2014 when he joined ridesharing company Uber as senior vice president of policy and strategy, and he did so again in January when he announced he was signing on with CZI. Mr. Plouffe said at the time that his new job would be to “find creative ways to lift the voices of those who want to build a better future.”
Edwin McCleskey
CZI’s scientific officer, Mr. McCleskey is a neuroscientist who spent more than a decade as the scientific officer at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. That organization, headquartered outside Washington, grants hundreds of millions of dollars a year to advance biomedical research and tens of millions to support science education.
John Bailey
The CZI education fellow’s former gigs include director of educational technology at the Department of Education, special adviser to President George W. Bush, and start-up consultant. He also spent a year at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, managing $20 million in advocacy grants to groups like the America’s Promise Alliance.
Kaya Henderson
Another CZI education fellow, Ms. Henderson headed the Washington, D.C., public-school system from 2010 to 2016. (While in the role, she was found to have abused her position to help get preferential school placement for the children of city-government officials.) She is on the boards of the Aspen Institute, the College Board, and Teach for All.
Ken Mehlman
Though not a paid staff member, Mr. Mehlman may wield considerable influence at CZI as chair of its policy advisory board, an appointment Mr. Zuckerberg and Dr. Chan announced simultaneously with their hire of Mr. Plouffe. President George W. Bush’s 2004 campaign manager and a former Republican National Committee chairman, Mr. Mehlman heads up global affairs at the private-equity firm KKR & Co. He is a trustee of Mount Sinai Hospital, Franklin & Marshall College, Teach for America and Sponsors for Educational Opportunity.
Correction: A previous version of this article was incorrect in the length of time that Jim Shelton was a program director at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
