Advisory Board

Jeff Raikes is a co-founder of the Raikes Foundation with his wife, Tricia. The foundation works toward a fair and just future where all young people have the support they need to achieve their full potential. Key areas of focus include reimagining an educational system that creates conditions for all students to succeed; ensuring housing stability for youth; building a fair and representative democracy; and advancing impact-driven philanthropy.

Jeff is the former CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he led the foundation’s efforts to expand opportunity and improve outcomes for people around the world. Before joining the foundation, Jeff was president of Microsoft’s Business Division and served as a member of the company’s senior leadership team that set the overall strategy and direction for the company. 

Currently, he is part of the ownership group of the Seattle Mariners and serves on its board. He also serves on the boards of Costco Wholesale Corporation, the Raikes School at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Green Diamond Resource Company, EpiCrop Technologies, EpiMethyl Analytics, Lumen Bioscience, and Hudl. After ten years of board service, Jeff is Chair Emeritus of Stanford University.

Sakurako “Sako” D. Fisher is a cofounder of O2 Initiatives, an organization that supports sabbaticals for executive directors of nonprofit organizations and has served as a trustee of Stanford University for the past decade. She is the past chair of the Smithsonian National Board and past president of the San Francisco Symphony, of which she remains a board member. She has also served as a trustee of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center, and the Thacher School in Ojai, Calif., as well as vice chair of the board of the Exploratorium Museum. Other boards on which she has served include Stern Grove, the Asian Art Museum Foundation, the American Hospital of Paris, the American Hospital of Paris Foundation, Alliance Française, Centre Pompidou Foundation, and ODC/San Francisco. Additionally, she currently sits on the U.S. advisory board of the Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs and on the advisory board of the Gladstone Institutes. She was also recently appointed to chair the Sister City of Paris Committee.

She has been awarded the ranks of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (2006) and Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur (2022) by the government of France.

Sako was elected to the Stanford Board of Trustees in 2015 and chaired the Land & Buildings Committee. She continues her service to Stanford on the Advisory Council of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Public Art Committee, the Doerr School’s Sustainability Commons Advisory Committee, the Arts Practice Spaces Task Force, and the Philanthropy and Civil Society board. She co-chaired her 25th, 30th, 35th, and 40th reunion campaigns. 

Sako and her husband, William, MBA ’84, reside in San Francisco.

With a career spanning public service, politics, business, nonprofits, and technology, Don Gips is a Strategic Counselor and CEO Emeritus to the Skoll Foundation. In this role, he provides high-level guidance and support to the leadership team, our community of Awardees and grantees, and the Board of Directors.

From 2019 to 2025, Don served as Chief Executive Officer of the Skoll Foundation, leading its work to invest in, connect, and champion social innovators around the world.

In 2008, Gips helped lead President Barack Obama’s transition team and then served in the White House as his Director of Presidential Personnel at the beginning of the Administration. From there he went on to serve as U.S. Ambassador to South Africa from 2009 to 2013. There he was recognized for his efforts to promote improved relations with South Africa when the U.S. State Department chose him as the recipient of the 2010 Sue M. Cobb Award for Exemplary Diplomatic Service.

During the Clinton Administration, he served as Chief Domestic Policy Advisor to Vice President Al Gore and Chief of the International Bureau at the Federal Communications Commission. At the FCC, he helped design the first spectrum auctions for licenses to utilize the continuum of frequencies used to provide wireless services ranging from radio broadcasting to mobile communications and satellite services.

In 1993, he helped create the framework for what would become the U.S. national service program, AmeriCorps, that continues to enroll more than 200,000 Americans each year in public service.

Gips has also held various roles in the private sector. He was head of Corporate Development at Level 3 Communications; led the Africa practice at Albright Stonebridge Group; and served as a venture partner at Columbia Capital and a Senior Advisor at Blackstone. He began his private sector career as a consultant at McKinsey & Company.

He currently sits on the board of CassTech, Africa’s leading provider of information and telecommunications services, and is on the Board of the Nelson Mandela

Children’s Fund US. He has also served on the boards of Zayo, Mindspeed, Liquid, Omnispace, and Nextnav.

Don received an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University. He is married to Elizabeth (Liz) Berry Gips. Don and Liz have three grown sons: Sam, Peter, and Ben.

Caitlin Heising is vice chair of the Heising-Simons Foundation, a family foundation based in Los Altos and San Francisco, California. She received a Master of Public Administration at the London School of Economics (LSE) with a focus on social impact, graduating with distinction in 2020. Previously, she worked with Article 3 Advisors, a human rights and strategic philanthropy consultancy based in San Francisco. In 2014, she joined the board of the Heising-Simons Foundation, where she has developed a grantmaking program focused on human rights and criminal justice reform in the U.S. 

Caitlin serves on the Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch and is the vice chair of HRW’s U.S. Program Advisory Committee. Caitlin sits on the advisory board of Stanford PACS. She is also a founding member of Maverick Collective, a global community of strategic philanthropists and advocates working to end extreme poverty by improving the health and rights of women and girls around the world. She was a 2016 Research Fellow at Institute for the Future, where she collaborated on research projects exploring the future of philanthropy and social innovation. Caitlin holds a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Brown University.

Kathy Kwan is a Bay Area philanthropist who led and subsequently spent down the assets of the Eustace-Kwan Family Foundation between 2006 and 2023. During her tenure, Kathy funded over sixty programs and organizations in higher education, K-12 schools, safety net organizations, and local non-profits across the SF Bay Area.  

Through experience, she has found that mid-size, multi-year investments help organizations build momentum and achieve big things on complex problems. She also believes leaders matter and often focuses on building organizational capacity, acquiring skills, and creating infrastructure.

Kathy is specifically interested in activating the next generation of philanthropic funders. She helped fund the development of Stanford PACS’s “Guide to Effective Philanthropy” and has shared her experience with multiple audiences. 

She serves on UC Berkeley’s Board of Visitors, the Letters & Sciences Advisory Board, and UC Berkeley’s Foundation Board.

Nancy Lindborg has served as the president and CEO of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation since August 2020. Through international and domestic grantmaking, the Foundation works with people and communities to create ensuring solutions for just societies and a healthy, resilient natural world. 

Nancy has spent most of her career working internationally on democracy, civil society, conflict resolution, and humanitarian response. She previously served as the president and CEO of the U.S. Institute of Peace; as the assistant administrator for the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance at USAID; and as president of Mercy Corps. She previously lived and worked in Nepal and Central Asia.   

Nancy currently serves on the boards of the ClimateWorks Foundation and International Crisis Group, and as an advisory council member of the Collaborative for Gender + Reproductive Equity. 

Nancy holds a B.A. and an M.A. in English literature from Stanford University and an M.A. in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Carter McClelland is the chairman and founder of Union Square Advisors, a San Francisco and New York-based investment bank focused on the technology sector. Prior to founding Union Square in 2007, he was chairman of Bank of America Securities, where he oversaw the bank’s global corporate and investment banking relationships. Prior to that, Mr. McClelland oversaw Deutsche Bank’s businesses in the Americas. Mr. McClelland began his investment banking career at Morgan Stanley, where he held numerous positions in investment banking and ultimately served as the firm’s chief administrative officer. 

Mr. McClelland is one of the co-chairs of Echoing Green, a New York-based not-for-profit that provides seed capital to social entrepreneurs. Mr. McClelland has a BS in engineering and an MBA from Stanford University.

Kim Meredith serves as Chief Executive Officer of the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation. She is chief strategist, fundraiser, grant maker, and advocate for one of the country’s top public hospitals, the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center. Since Meredith joined in June 2020, she oversees all aspects of the Foundation working closely with the SFGHF Board of Directors, and is actively involved in revitalization efforts for San Francisco.

After eleven years as the inaugural Executive Director of the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society (Stanford PACS) Meredith stepped down to join SFGHF as CEO. At Stanford PACS, she was responsible for expanding research initiatives and strategic growth including the acquisition of the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR), and initiating programmatic initiatives such as the Philanthropy Innovation Summit.

Prior to Stanford PACS, Meredith served as the Chief Development Officer for Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) in New York City. Before joining PPFA, she served as the Chief Operating Officer at Planned Parenthood Golden Gate in San Francisco over seven counties. Meredith launched her career at AT&T for nearly a decade as part of AT&T’s prestigious Management Development Program.

Meredith currently serves on the board of directors for the George Lucas Educational Foundation and Trust for the Americas, and on the advisory boards of Stanford PACS and UCSF Rosenman Institute. 

Meredith earned a BA in Economics from Stanford. She was a fellow at the Stanford Graduate School of Business Executive Program for Nonprofit Leaders, and sponsored at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business Corporate Board Workshop.

Jonathan Soros is animated by a foundational belief in every person’s equal right to dignity and opportunity.  A devoted spouse and father, he is married with three children and lives in New York City.  

Professionally, Jonathan is co-founder of Athletes Unlimited, a pioneering new approach to professional sports leagues. He is also founder and Chief Executive Officer of JS Capital Management LLC, a private family office; founding partner at One Madison Group, a multi-family investment platform that evolved from his work building JS Capital Management; and a Director of the Jennifer and Jonathan Allan Soros Foundation.

Together with his wife, Jennifer, Jonathan is also co-founder of Give Lively LLC, a social enterprise to facilitate philanthropic giving, which she directs. He is a Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, a think tank based in New York City, and he serves on the boards of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, America’s premier legal organization fighting for racial justice, and GivingTuesday, a global movement that unleashes the power of radical generosity.

Prior to founding JS Capital, Jonathan spent nine years with Soros Fund Management LLC, serving as its President and Deputy Chairman from 2005 to 2011. He is a co-founder of Friends of Democracy PAC, the Fair Trial Initiative, and Victory 2021. He also previously served as co-chair of the board of New America and held several board positions affiliated with the Open Society Foundations.

Jonathan clerked for Judge Stephen F. Williams of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the John F. Kennedy School of Government. He received his BA from Wesleyan University.