Board and Advisors

Directors

Herbert Sandler - Chairman

Mr. Sandler and his wife, Marion, founded Golden West Financial Corporation in 1963. They were Golden West’s chief executive officers and chairmen of the board from 1963 until 2006, when the company was sold to Wachovia Corporation. Under the Sandlers’ leadership, Golden West became the second-largest thrift institution in the United States and was considered to be one of the best managed financial institutions in the country by many industry observers. Fortune magazine ranked Golden West as the nation’s most admired mortgage services company, and on seven separate occasions named Golden West America’s most admired savings institution. Morningstar, a leading provider of investment research, named the Sandlers CEOs of the Year in 2004.  The Sandlers are currently presidents of the Sandler Foundation.

Paul Steiger

Paul E. Steiger is the editor-in-chief, CEO and president of ProPublica.

Steiger served as the managing editor of the Wall Street Journal from 1991 to 2007. During his tenure, members of the Journal’s newsroom staff were awarded 16 Pulitzer Prizes. In addition, ProPublica reporters received Pulitzer Prizes in May 2010 and 2011.

He is a member of the steering committee of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, based in Arlington, Va., which provides free legal assistance to journalists. He is a trustee of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, based in Miami, that funds efforts to enhance journalism and the functioning of American communities. From 1999 to 2007, he was a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board, serving as its chairman in his final year. For six years, from June 2005 to June 2011, Steiger was the chairman of the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based nonprofit that advocates for press freedom around the globe.

Awards include the Columbia Journalism Award, the University of Missouri Honor Award for Distinguished Service in Journalism, the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism from Harvard University’s Joan Shorenstein Center, the Gerald Loeb Award for lifetime achievement from the John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA, the Dean’s Medal for Distinguished Leadership from Brandeis University, the Fourth Estate Award from the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., the National Press Foundation’s George Beveridge Editor of the Year Award, the Decade of Excellence Award from the World Leadership Forum in London, and the American Society of News Editors Leadership Award.

Steiger worked for 15 years as a reporter, the Washington economics correspondent, and the business editor for the Los Angeles Times, and for 26 years as a reporter and editor for the Wall Street Journal. He received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Yale University in 1964.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is the W. E. B. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities and the Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University.

Professor Gates is also Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford African American Studies Center, the first comprehensive scholarly online resource in the field of African American Studies and Africana Studies. He is co-editor with K. Anthony Appiah of the encyclopedia Encarta Africana published on CD-ROM by Microsoft (1999), and in book form by Basic Civitas Books under the title Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience (1999). His most recent books are America Behind the Color Line: Dialogues with African Americans (Warner Books, 2004), African American Lives, co-edited with Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham (Oxford, 2004), and The Annotated Uncle Tom’s Cabin, edited with Hollis Robbins (W. W. Norton, 2006).

In 2006, Professor Gates wrote and produced the PBS documentary also called "African American Lives," the first documentary series to employ genealogy and science to provide an understanding of African American history. He also wrote and produced the documentaries "Wonders of the African World" (2000) and "America Beyond the Color Line" (2004) for the BBC and PBS, and authored the companion volumes to both series. Professor Gates is currently at work on a sequel to "African American Lives."

Professor Gates is the author of several works of literary criticism, including Figures in Black: Words, Signs and the "Racial" Self (Oxford University Press, 1987); and The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism(Oxford, 1988), winner of the American Book Award in 1989. He authenticated and facilitated the publication, in 2002, of The Bondwoman’s Narrative by Hannah Crafts, the only known novel by a female African American slave and possibly the first novel by an African American woman. He is the co-author, with Cornel West, of The Future of the Race (Knopf, 1996), and the author of a memoir, Colored People (Knopf, 1994), that traces his childhood experiences in a small West Virginia town in the 1950s and 1960s.

Professor Gates has edited several influential anthologies, including The Norton Anthology of African American Literature (W. W. Norton, 1996); and the Schomburg Library of Nineteenth Century Black Women Writers (Oxford, 1991). In addition, Professor Gates is editor of Transition magazine, an international review of African, Caribbean, and African American politics. An influential cultural critic, Professor Gates’s publications include a 1994 cover story for Time magazine, numerous articles for the New Yorker, and in September 2004, a biweekly guest column in The New York Times.

Professor Gates earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in English literature from Clare College at the University of Cambridge, and his B.A. summa cum laude in English language and literature from Yale University in 1973. Before joining the faculty of Harvard in 1991, he taught at Yale, Cornell, and Duke. His honors and grants include a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" (1981), the George Polk Award for Social Commentary (1993), Time magazine’s "25 Most Influential Americans" list (1997), a National Humanities Medal (1998), election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1999), the Jefferson Lecture (2002), and a Visiting Fellowship at the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (2003-2004). He has received 44 honorary degrees.

Professor Gates served as Chair of the Department of African and African American Studies at Harvard from 1991 to 2006.

Gara LaMarche

Gara LaMarche is a Senior Fellow at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service. From 2007 to 2011, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of the Atlantic Philanthropies, an international foundation that focuses on aging, children and youth, health, and human rights operating in Australia, Bermuda, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, South Africa, the United States, and Vietnam. During his tenure at Atlantic, the foundation made the largest grant ever made by a foundation for an advocacy campaign—over $25 million—to press for comprehensive health care reform in the U.S., embraced a social justice framework for grantmaking, and worked closely with new governments in many of its geographies to take advantage of opportunities to achieve changes in HIV/AIDS and nursing policies in South Africa, civic engagement and democratic reform in Ireland, a more secure peace in Northern Ireland, and many other areas.

Before joining Atlantic in April 2007, Mr. LaMarche served as Vice President and Director of U.S. Programs for the Open Society Institute (OSI), a foundation established by philanthropist George Soros. Mr. LaMarche joined OSI in 1996 to launch its U.S. Programs, which focus on challenges to social justice and democracy. During his tenure there, OSI (since renamed the Open Society Foundations) became the leading funder of criminal justice reform, launched and supported a number of fellowship programs in justice, law, medicine and community engagement, established an office critical in the revitalization of Baltimore, and helped create and foster a network of urban high school debate leagues.

Mr. LaMarche previously served as Associate Director of Human Rights Watch and Director of its Free Expression Project from 1990 to 1996. He was Director of the Freedom-to-Write Program of the PEN American Center from 1988 to 1990.

He served in a variety of positions with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), with which he first became associated with in 1972 at age 18. Mr. LaMarche was the Associate Director of the ACLU’s New York branch and the Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas.

Mr. LaMarche is the author of numerous articles on human rights and social justice issues, and is the editor of “Speech and Equality: Do We Really Have to Choose?” (New York University Press, 1996).  He teaches a course on philanthropy and public policy at NYU’s Wagner School and has been an adjunct professor at New School University and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. 

Mr. LaMarche has been recognized as a “Good Guy” by the Texas Women’s Political Caucus and as a Voice for Justice by the Fifth Avenue Committee. He has received the John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service from Bard College, the Hubert H. Humphrey Civil and Human Rights Award from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the Progressive Leadership Award from USAction, the President’s Award from the National Council of La Raza, the Champion Award from the Center for Community Change, and the Hope Award from Providence House.

Mr. LaMarche serves on the boards of StoryCorps, ProPublica, and the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy.

A Westerly, Rhode Island, native, Mr. LaMarche is a graduate of Columbia College at Columbia University in New York.

Paul Sagan

Paul Sagan, Chief Executive Officer of Akamai, joined the company in October 1998. Mr. Sagan was elected to the Akamai Board of Directors in January 2005, and he became CEO in April 2005. He also served as President of Akamai from May 1999 until September 2010, and he brings to Akamai the experience of leading visionary technology companies and media businesses, and a wealth of management experience.

Previously, Mr. Sagan served as senior advisor to the World Economic Forum from 1997 to 1998, consulting to the Geneva-based organization on information technology for the world’s 1,000 foremost multinational corporations.

In 1995, Mr. Sagan was named president and editor of new media at Time Inc., a division of Time Warner, and worked in that position until 1997. Previously, he served as managing editor of Time Warner’s News on Demand project and was a senior member of the team responsible for the development of the company’s online, cable online, electronic publishing, and Internet publishing activities. He was a founder of Road Runner, the world’s first broadband cable modem service, and Pathfinder, one of the early Web properties that pioneered Internet advertising.

Mr. Sagan joined Time Warner in 1991 to design and launch NY 1 News, the cable news network based in New York City. NY 1 became known for its use of digital video technology and video journalists carrying their own small-format cameras. His career began in broadcast television news. He joined WCBS-TV in 1981 as a news writer and was named news director in 1987 at age 28, the youngest person to hold the position in the network’s history.

Mr. Sagan was appointed by President Obama to the President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee in 2010. He is a three-time Emmy Award winner for broadcast journalism, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2008, and the 2009 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in the technology category. In 1996 he was named a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum.

He is a director of Massachusetts-based EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) and iRobot Corp. (NASDAQ: IRBT), and previously served as a director of Dow Jones & Company, Digitas Inc., and Maven Networks before they were acquired.

Mr. Sagan is a trustee of Northwestern University; a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern; co-chairman of the Medill Board of Advisors; a member of the MIT Visiting Committee in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; a member of the Dean’s Council at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University; a member of the advisory board of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics & Public Policy at the Kennedy School; and an advisor to the MATCH Charter Public School in Boston. He was a member of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy.

Tom Unterman

Tom Unterman is the Managing Partner of Rustic Canyon Partners, which he founded in 1999 after a long career as a corporate executive and prior to that, a corporate lawyer. From 1992 through 1999, he held several executive positions at the Times Mirror Company, most recently as its Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Prior to joining Times Mirror, Tom was a partner of the law firm of Morrison & Foerster LLP, which he joined after serving as a partner of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University before receiving his law degree from the University of Chicago. In addition to serving as a director of several of Rustic Canyon’s portfolio companies, Tom currently serves on the boards of The California Community Foundation, CalArts, and Heal the Bay.

Journalism Advisory Board

Jill Abramson, executive editor, The New York Times

David Boardman, executive editor, The Seattle Times

Raymond T. Bonner, writer living in London

Robert A. Caro, historian and biographer of Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson

John S. Carroll, former editor of the Los Angeles Times and the Baltimore Sun

L. Gordon Crovitz, former publisher of The Wall Street Journal, partner, Journalism Online

David Gergen, professor of public service, Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and director of its Center for Public Leadership

Shawn McIntosh, public editor, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Ellen Miller, executive director, The Sunlight Foundation

Priscilla Painton, executive editor, non-fiction, Simon & Schuster

Allan Sloan, senior editor at large, Fortune magazine

Kerry Smith, senior vice president for editorial quality, ABC News

Cynthia A. Tucker, visiting professor, University of Georgia Journalism School

Business Advisory Council

Mark Colodny, Chair, Managing Director, Warburg Pincus LLC

Joanna Stone Herman, Vice Chair

Justin Blake, Managing Director, Edelman

Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP

David Coulter, Managing Director, Warburg Pincus LLC

Sean Fieler, General Partner, Equinox Partners

Maria Gotsch, President & CEO, NYC Investment Fund

Dave Goldberg, CEO, SurveyMonkey

Jack Griffin, CEO, Empirical Strategic Advisors

Michael Hansen, CEO, Elsevier Health Sciences

Mellody Hobson, President, Ariel Investments

Lori E. Lesser, Partner, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP

Gary Mueller, CEO & Chairman, Institutional Investor

Reed Phillips III, Managing Partner, DeSilva+Phillips

William Pollak, CEO, ALM Media LLC

Andrew Prozes, Senior Advisor, Warburg Pincus LLC

Lawrence Rand, President and CEO, Kekst and Company

Davia Temin, President and CEO, Temin & Company

Gregory Waldorf, CEO-in-Residence, Accel Partners