Save the Children and Action Against Hunger USA Get New Leaders (Transitions)

City of Chicago

Julie Morita, a medical doctor and commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, has been named executive vice president and will oversee all programs, policy, research, and communications at the $11.4 billion Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Emmett Carson, former chief executive of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, has been hired as the chief operating officer of the $1 billion Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, now under construction in Los Angeles with money donated by the filmmaker George Lucas.

For 11 years, Carson led the Silicon Valley Community Foundation through a period of meteoric growth. It now has $13.5 billion in total assets, nearly as much as the Ford Foundation, whose total assets stand at $13.8 billion.

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Carson, who is 60, resigned under pressure in June after a report from a law firm hired by the foundation’s board described a workplace culture that permitted inappropriate racial and sexual comments and unacceptable behavior, such as berating and bullying.

His departure was set in motion by a Chronicle article published a year ago, which reported that Mari Ellen Loijens, his second-in-command and the foundation’s top fundraiser, engaged in abusive and inappropriate behavior.

A spokeswoman for the Lucas museum said officials were aware of the controversy over hiring Carson but were confident in his leadership skills.

Charles Owubah will now serve as CEO of the hunger group after nearly 20 years at World Vision, most recently as vice president and partnership leader. He succeeds Andrea Tamburini, who is stepping down after five years at the helm.

Aaron Kowalski, chief mission officer at this group, which raises money for diabetes research, has been promoted to CEO.

He is the organization’s first leader with Type 1 diabetes. Kowalski succeeds Derek Rapp, who announced last October he would step down after almost five years as CEO.

JDRF was No. 99 in the Chronicle’s ranking of America’s Favorite Charities after raising $200 million in total revenue in 2017.

Rebecca Rimel, who has led Pew Charitable Trusts for three decades and oversaw its transformation from a foundation to a charity, announced to the organization’s staff that she will step down when a successor is named.

Pew Charitable Trusts

In 2003, Pew announced that the Internal Revenue Service had approved its plan to become a charity. The change was intended to allow Pew to raise money for its projects and devote more time and money to lobbying and advocacy.

The move was controversial at the time, with critics charging that the IRS had “unleashed a financial behemoth” without the checks and balances that limit the power of traditional foundations.

But in many ways, the transformation at Pew foreshadowed one of the biggest current trends in philanthropy — the use of limited-liability companies that allow wealthy donors more flexibility in pursuing their goals.

A growing list of billionaires, including Laurene Powell Jobs, Pierre Omidyar, Mark Zuckerberg, and John Arnold, have set up LLCs to pursue social change through lobbying and for-profit investing in addition to traditional grant making.

Save the Children

Janti Soeripto, deputy chief executive officer of Save the Children International, will become president and chief operating officer of the humanitarian-aid charity’s American arm on June 3. She will report directly to its CEO, Carolyn Miles.

Tjada D’Oyen McKenna will now serve as the international-aid organization’s chief operating officer. Most recently she was chief operating officer at Habitat for Humanity International. CARE raised $401 million from private sources in 2017, landing it at No. 44 on our America’s Favorite Charities ranking.

Susan Chira has been named editor-in-chief of the Marshall Group, which focuses on criminal-justice issues. She is a veteran news editor who has worked at the New York Times for almost 40 years.

Susan Smith Richardson, editorial director for newsroom practice change at Solutions Journalism Network, has been named CEO of the Center for Public Integrity.

Karen Baynes-Dunning has stepped down from the legal organization’s Board of Directors to serve as its interim president and CEO following the departure of several high-level leaders. She is president of Baynes-Dunning Consulting and a former juvenile-court judge.

Katie Meyler, the founder and CEO of More Than Me, a charity she created to protect Liberian girls from sexual exploitation, has resigned.

Meyler took a leave of absence in October after an investigation by the news organization ProPublica revealed that a senior staff member at the charity had raped girls in its care in Liberia.

Meyler said she did not know about the abuse at the time, but she realized she should resign to avoid becoming a distraction to the charity’s mission.

David Hamburg, who led the Carnegie Corporation of New York from 1982 to 1997 and oversaw its reorganization into a multibillion-dollar foundation, died on April 21. He was 93.

Correction: A previous version of this article contained an error in the headline and a subhead, which said that Janti Soeripto would become chief executive officer, rather than chief operating officer, of Save the Children.