Board of Directors

Abby Smith Rumsey is an intellectual and cultural historian. She focuses on the impact of information technologies on perceptions of history, time, and identity, the nature of evidence, and the changing roles of libraries and archives. Her books include Memory, Edited. Taking Liberties with History (MIT Press 2023) and When We Are No More: How Digital Memory is Shaping our Future (Bloomsbury Press 2016).

Rumsey served as director of the Scholarly Communication Institute at the University of Virginia; Director of Programs at the Council on Library and Information Resources; and manager of programs relating to preservation of and access to cultural heritage collections at the Library of Congress. She served on the National Science Foundation’s Blue Ribbon Task Force on the Economics of Digital Preservation and Access; the American Council of Learned Societies’ Commission on the Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences; and the Library of Congress’s National Digital Information Infrastructure Program. 

Board service includes: Chair, the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences; the Radcliffe Institute’s Schlesinger Library Advisory Council; the Stanford University Library Advisory Committee; the Society of Architectural Historians; the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia; and the Harvard Board of Overseers Committee to Visit the Harvard University Library. Rumsey received a BA from Harvard College and MA and PhD in Russian and intellectual history from Harvard University.

Roberta Katz holds a PhD in anthropology as well as a law degree, and was previously the General Counsel of McCaw Cellular Corporation (now AT&T Wireless) and then of Netscape Corporation. From 2004 to 2017, she served under Stanford University Presidents John Hennessy and Marc Tessier-Lavigne as the Associate Vice president for Strategic Planning at Stanford. She also served as President Tessier-Lavigne’s interim chief of staff. Katz continues to be involved as a consultant to various interdisciplinary initiatives at Stanford, serves on several advisory and nonprofit boards, and is a co-author of Gen Z, Explained: The Art of Living in a Digital Age, published by the University of Chicago Press in 2021.

Sarah A. Soule is the Morgridge Professor of Organizational Behavior, and the Sara Miller McCune Director of the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences. Sarah’s research applies social movement theory to organizational processes, and organizational theory to social movement processes. For example, some of her research has looked at how social movements matter to organizational practice and policy change, net of the effects of diffusion.  

Other research has examined the effects of network position on tactical innovation in protest and the role of coalitions and collaboration on protest tactic innovation. She is currently working on a study of how protest affects the outcomes of shareholder resolutions, and another study of how the public views symbolic statements by corporate leaders around social issues. She has written two books, the first with Cambridge University Press, entitled Contention and Corporate Social Responsibility, and the second with Norton, called A Primer on Social Movements. 

Recent published work has appeared in the American Journal of Sociology, Administrative Science Quarterly, the American Sociological Review, Organizational Studies, the Strategic Management Journal, and the Annual Review of Sociology. She is an editor for the Cambridge University Press Contentious Politics series. She has served on a number of boards of nonprofit organizations, is currently a member of the Faculty Advisory Board to the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (the Stanford d.school) and to the Stanford VMWare Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab, and is a Faculty Fellow at the Knight Hennessy Scholars Program.

Laszlo is an Advisor at the venture capital firm General Catalyst, the co-founder and Chairman of Gretel.ai, the leader in synthetic data, and founder and Co-Director of the Berkeley Transformative CHRO Leadership Academy. He was the founder and CEO of Humu, which used "nudges" to make people happier and more productive at work (acquired in 2023). 

From 2006 to 2016, Laszlo was Senior Vice President of People Operations of Google/Alphabet, and a member of the executive management team. Over that decade, he was responsible for growing the company from ~6,000 to ~75,000 employees and ensuring the firm’s culture remained innovative and robust. Laszlo led the creation of the field of “People Analytics”, the application of academic-quality rigor and Google-paced innovation to people management. He also led development of the Google Job Search API, the only component of Google’s search engine developed outside of the core engineering organization. During his tenure, Google was named the #1 Best Company to Work for in the United States seven times as well as recognized over 150 times around the world as an exceptional and most sought after employer. He was named “HR Executive of the Year”, “HR Executive of the Decade”, and elected to the National Academy of Human Resources.

His NYT-bestelling book, WORK RULES! Insights from Inside Google to Transform How You Live and Lead, has been published in 25 languages and sold 750,000 copies. He has donated 100% of his book income to charity.

Prior to Google, Laszlo worked at McKinsey & Company, General Electric and as a professional actor. He (briefly) was ranked #1 in the world in the video game Assassin’s Creed.

He has previously served on the Board of Heidrick & Struggles (HSII) and as a Trustee of Pomona College, and currently serves on the advisory board of the Tent Council for Refugees. Laszlo earned a bachelor's degree in international relations from Pomona College, graduating in three years, and an MBA from the Yale School of Management.

Xav's work has focused on economic opportunity and inclusive growth, racial equity and pluralism, housing, urban and regional development, and democratic governance in the U.S. and abroad. He also has a longstanding interest and track record supporting efforts to make research a more powerful and positive source of social impact at scale, especially through government, markets and culture (or social norms). An award-winning educator and researcher, he is also an experienced manager in philanthropy and government.
He has written or edited three books: The Geography of Opportunity: Race and Housing Choice in Metropolitan America, which won planning’s top book award; Democracy as Problem Solving: Civic Capacity in Communities Across the Globe, a finalist for the C. Wright Mills Prize for best scholarly book on a social problem, and Moving to Opportunity: The Story of an American Experiment to Fight Ghetto Poverty, winner of the Brownlow Award. His views have appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, CNN, and other major media, in English and in Spanish.
In 2020, he served as Distinguished Visiting Professor of Business, Public Service and Sociology at New York University and was a volunteer on the Biden-Harris Transition Team, conducting agency reviews, serving on the volunteer interviewer corps, and advising on business recovery, climate action, racial equity, worker empowerment, philanthropic partnerships, and other issues.
Prior to joining Brookings, he served for six years as vice president of the Ford Foundation, overseeing the its inclusive economies and markets work globally along with its regional program teams based in China, India, and Indonesia. He led the foundation’s efforts to build the field of impact investing and commit $1 billion of endowment assets, the largest-ever for a private foundation, for that purpose.
Previously, Briggs was professor of sociology and urban planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and served as head of MIT’s Housing, Community, and Economic Development Group. From January 2009 to August 2011, he was appointed by President Obama and served as associate director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. There he oversaw a wide array of policy, budget, and management issues for roughly half of the cabinet agencies of the federal government. He has also worked as a community planner in the South Bronx and faculty member at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
He serves on the boards of Demos, the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences, the Global Impact Investing Network, JUST Capital, and One Fair Wage and is an elected member of the National Academy of Public Administration. Xav holds an engineering degree from Stanford University, an MPA from Harvard, and a PhD in sociology and education from Columbia University. He also studied as a Rotary Scholar in Brazil.

Marcy Carsey was a partner with Tom Werner in the Carsey Werner Company, responsible for shows like "The Cosby Show," "Roseanne," "Third Rock from the Sun," and "That 70's Show."

Born in Weymouth, Massachusetts to a dad who worked in the shipyard and a mom who taught her to always go for it, Carsey graduated from the University of New Hampshire and headed to New York to get a foothold in TV as an NBC tour guide at 30 Rock.  She rose through many jobs on both coasts, culminating in being named head of series television at ABC in Los Angeles.  Her mom cheered.

In 1980 she left ABC to form her own production company, and later Tom Werner joined her. They had a great run, and now she puts her energies into things like public education, social justice causes and chairing the Hammer Museum board. Marcy has two children, Becky and Pete, and three stepchildren.

Everett Harper is the CEO and Co-Founder of Truss, a human-centered, digital services company that designs, builds and delivers complex software solutions for large government agencies and Fortune 500 corporate clients. Truss was named as an Inc 5000 fastest-growing US private company three years straight: 2020 through 2022. Everett wrote his first book, Move to the Edge, Declare it Center (Wiley) in March 2022, to offer a framework of practices and processes to help leaders make better decisions during times of complexity and uncertainty. 

Everett was an A.B. Duke Scholar at Duke University, majoring in biomedical and electrical engineering. He also won a NCAA National Championship in soccer, and was inducted into the North Carolina Soccer Hall of Fame in 2019. Everett graduated with an MBA and a M.Ed in Learning, Design and Technology from Stanford University. 

Outside of Truss, Everett serves as a Board Member of CARE, and Advisory Board Member for the CASE at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. Before founding Truss, he was at Linden Lab (maker of Second Life), Self-Help CDFI, and Bain & Co.

Dave Hitz is chairman of the Hitz Foundation, and Founder Emeritus of NetApp. Focus areas for the Hitz Foundation include Mayan archeology, 3D scanning of ancient sites and museum collections, and global sustainability. Hitz co-founded Play On Shakespeare, which has translated all of Shakespeare's plays into present-day, performable English; it is now sponsoring theatrical productions as well as podcasts of these translations. Play On has been called the single largest literary translation project since the King James Bible—and also “a waste of money and talent.” As chairman of Deep Springs College, Hitz helped guide the transition to coeducation after 100 years of all-male enrollment.

In 1992, Hitz co-founded NetApp, a Silicon Valley data management company. His roles included programmer, evangelist, architect, Executive VP of Engineering, cheerleader, strategist, and coach. Hitz is an inventor on 29 patents. He wrote a book, How to Castrate a Bull: Unexpected Lessons on Risk, Growth, and Success in Business, about NetApp's journey from startup to Fortune 500. Hitz is currently Founder Emeritus. Prior to NetApp, he worked for MIPS and Auspex.

Hitz dropped out of high school. He attended George Washington University, Swarthmore College, Deep Springs College, and—finally—Princeton University where he received a BSE in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. At Deep Springs College, Dave worked as a cowboy and learned to herd, brand, and castrate cattle.

Mubarik Imam is currently exploring ideas for what to build next. She was an early employee at WhatsApp and during her seven years, was involved in several major company initiatives. These included leading the product international growth and integrity teams, data science and engineering, research and strategy.

When Mubarik joined WhatsApp, she led the International Growth and Partnerships team. At the time, WhatsApp had less 200 million people using the service. Over the next six years, Mubarik and her team helped WhatsApp grow to a product of over 1.8 billion people. She was closely involved in FB's acquisition of WhatsApp and led the integration efforts across the company. Mubarik also spent some time at the intersection of Health & Technology. She led Facebook’s exploration for Frontline workers and Health Systems to assist with the company’s CoVID response. Mubarik also led Marketing for NimbleRx.

Prior to joining WhatsApp, Mubarik worked at Dropbox, the Packages Group and earlier in her career was an Acumen Fund Fellow and an Associate at Bain and Company. She is a Stanford GSB alum (MBA), and also holds degrees from the Harvard Kennedy School (MPA/ID) and MIT (BSc Electrical Engineering). Having lived and worked in over six countries, Mubarik is passionate about the intersection of technology, business, education and policy. She serves on the Board for the LUMS School of Science and Engineering, Hiller Aviation Museum and served on the Beyond CoVID taskforce at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Mubarik currently lives in Palo Alto with her husband, two sons and one daughter. Her interests include photography, flying and science education.

Rob Jackson is the Douglas Provostial Professor at Stanford University. He and his lab study the many ways people affect the Earth. They are currently examining the effects of climate change and droughts on forest mortality and grassland ecosystems. They are also working to measure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the Global Carbon Project (globalcarbonproject.org), which Jackson chairs. Examples of new projects include establishing a global network of methane tower measurements at more than 80 sites worldwide and measuring and reducing methane emissions from oil and gas wells, city streets, and homes and buildings.

As an author and photographer, Jackson has published a trade book about the environment (The Earth Remains Forever, University of Texas Press, 2002), two books of children’s poems, Animal Mischief (Boyds Mills Press, 2006)and Weekend Mischief (Highlights Magazine, 2010), and recent poems in the literary journals such as Southwest Review, Cortland Review, Cold Mountain Review, Atlanta Review, and LitHub. His photographs have appeared in many media outlets, including the NY Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and National Geographic News. Jackson was a CASBS fellow in 2019-20. 

Tomás Jiménez is a Professor of Sociology and Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity.  He is also Director of the Undergraduate Program on Urban Studies. His research and writing focus on immigration, assimilation, social mobility, and ethnic and racial identity. His latest book, States of Belonging: Immigration Policies, Attitudes, and Inclusion (Russell Sage Foundation Press) (with Deborah Schildkraut,  Yuen Ho, and John Dovidio) uses survey data (with an embedded experiment) and in-depth interviews to understand how state-level immigration policies shape belonging among Latino immigrants, US-born Latinos, and US-born whites in Arizona and New Mexico. His second book, The Other Side of Assimilation: How Immigrants are Changing American Life (University of California Press, 2017), uses interviews from a race and class spectrum of Silicon Valley residents to show how a relational form of assimilation changes both newcomers (immigrants and their children) and established individuals (people born in the US to US-born parents).  His first book, Replenished Ethnicity: Mexican Americans, Immigration, and Identity(University of California Press, 2010), draws on interviews and participant observation to understand how uninterrupted Mexican immigration influences the ethnic identity of later-generation Mexican Americans. The American Sociological Association’s Sociology of Latinos/as Section selected the book for its Distinguished Book Award. Professor Jiménez has also published his research in Science, American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Social Problems, International Migration Review, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Social Science Quarterly, DuBois Review, Social Currents, Qualitative Sociology, and the Annual Review of Sociology.

In other lines of research, Professor Jiménez examines how immigration becomes part of American national identity by studying a sample of high school US history textbooks from 1930-2007. This research employs hand-coding and computer-assisted text analysis of the textbook sample. With Marrianne Cooper (Clayman Institute, Stanford University) and Chrystal Redekopp (Laboratory for Social Research, Stanford), he is studying how Silicon Valley residents find housing in one of the most expensive real estate markets in the world. Professor Jiménez is embarking on new research examining how governments can effectively facilitate immigrant integration. As a Stanford Impact Labs Fellow, he is developing relationships with community partner organizations that will ultimately serve as collaborators in the research.

Professor Jiménez has taught at the University of California, San Diego. He has been named a Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer (2017-19). He has also been an Irvine Fellow at the New America Foundation and a Sage Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University (CASBS). He was the American Sociological Association Congressional Fellow in the office of US Rep. Michael Honda, where he served as a legislative aide for immigration, veterans’ affairs, housing, and election reform. His writing on policy has appeared in reports for the Immigration Policy Center and the Migration Policy Institute. He has written opinion-editorials on immigrant assimilation in several major news outlets, including The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, CNN.com, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and the San Diego Union-Tribune. He has also offered commentary for media outlets, including NBC News, National Public Radio, and Univision.

Chien Lee is a native of Hong Kong who spends most of his time working with not-for-profit organizations, particularly in the education sector. Aside from chairing his family's foundation, Lee is Chairman of the CUHK Medical Center, and Supervisor of St. Paul's Co-educational College and Primary School in Hong Kong. Lee is also a non-executive director of Hysan Development Company Limited, which is publicly listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. 

Lee received his BS, MS, and MBA degrees from Stanford University and has served his alma mater in many capacities, including on the university's Board of Trustees, the Boards of the Stanford Alumni Association and Stanford Health Care, the Advisory Councils of the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies, the Graduate School of Business, and the School of Engineering. He is currently on the Board of Stanford's Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and the Advisory Council of the Graduate School of Education. 

Paul Ricci was the chairman and CEO of Nuance Communications until he retired in March 2018.  While at Nuance, Ricci transformed the company from a small imaging software publisher into a $2 billion leading provider of conversational speech and AI solutions, with 14,000 employees worldwide.  During his tenure, the company successfully developed a pioneering healthcare technology business, became the leading global provider of customer self-service solutions, and built one of the world’s largest independent automotive software businesses.

Prior to joining Nuance in 2000, Ricci spent more than a decade at Xerox Corporation, where he served as a division president.  He began his career at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center. Ricci holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics from Stanford University.  He is a member of the Innovation Advisory Board at Partners Healthcare.

Katherine Stovel was professor and chair of the Sociology Department at the University of Washington prior to her retirement in 2024.  From 2014-2017 she was the director of the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences.

Stovel is general sociologist who studies basic questions concerning the dynamic interplay of social organization and social relations.  Her research, which follows in the tradition of social networks analysis, examines how core social processes are expressed in particular settings, and why these processes occasionally result in new institutional arrangements or new identities for individuals. Over the years she has investigated a number of substantive topics, including the impact of technological change on innovation, the micro-dynamics of brokerage relations, the impact of networks on employment segregation, the emergence of modern career systems, the process of becoming a Nazi, and temporal patterning in lynching in the Southern US.  She also has a long-standing interest in how social context affects the health of adolescents.  Stovel’s research has been published in major journals in Sociology and related disciplines, and has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and several private foundations.

Stovel holds an A.B. in political science from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  She spent the 2008-09 academic year as a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, and from 2013-17 served as the editor of the British Journal of Sociology.

In her extra-professional life, she enjoys sailing, cooking, and learning about early 20th century expressionist art.

Lara Tiedens was the Executive Director of Schwarzman Scholars, a post-graduate fellowship designed to develop and prepare the next generation of global leaders.  She oversaw the strategy and operations of the program and the private foundation that supports the program. Prior to Schwarzman Scholars, she was the President of Scripps College, the women’s college in the Claremont College Consortium. While at Scripps, Tiedens created the Centennial Strategic Plan for Scripps College, she completed the largest campaign in the college’s history, redesigned financial aid, spearheaded racial equity initiatives, and formed new partnerships to advance science and technology education and community building. Prior to arriving at Scripps College, Tiedens was a faculty member and Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. 

As a social psychologist, Tiedens’ research examined the psychological roots of inequality and the formation of hierarchies in organizations. She created, designed, led, and taught the core MBA leadership development course at the GSB.  As Senior Associate Dean, she worked with a number of the faculty areas and oversaw the school’s PhD, Executive Education, and Global Innovation Programs. 

Tiedens earned a BA at Carleton College, and her MA and PhD at the University of Michigan. She previously served on the Boards of The Claremont Colleges and IES Abroad, and is currently a trustee of The Webb Schools, and a Director at AlixPartners. Tiedens was a CASBS fellow in 2008-09.

Maryanne Wolf is an advocate for children and  literacy around the world through the use of neuroscience  research for education. Her  awards include highest honors from International Dyslexia Association (Geschwind and Orton awards) and The Dyslexia Foundation (Einstein Prize); Distinguished Researcher of the Year for Learning Disabilities in Australia; Distinguished Teacher of the Year from the state and national American Psychological Associations; Fulbright Fellowship ( Germany); and the Christopher Columbus Award for Intellectual Innovation for co-founding Curious Learning: A Global Literacy Initiative, with deployments in Africa, India, Australia, and rural United States. She has served as external advisor to the International Monetary Fund, Canadian Children’s Literacy Foundation, and other Boards, and  is a frequent speaker about global literacy at the Pontifical Academy of  Social Sciences and Academy of Sciences.

Wolf has authored over 170 scientific publications including: Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain (15 translations; HarperCollins, 2007); Tales of Literacy for the 21st Century (Oxford University Press, 2016); and Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital Culture (11 translations, HarperCollins, 2018). She has created the RAVE-O reading curriculum for dyslexia and co-authored RAN/RAS tests of reading prediction with Martha Denckla. She received both the national award from the Reading League for her contributions on reading research and the Walter Ong Award for her work on the effects of different mediums on the intellectual development of the species. Most recently, she was elected to be a permanent member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Wolf was a CASBS fellow in 2014-15.

John Seely Brown (JSB) was the Independent Co-chairman, Deloitte Center for the Edge.  Prior to that he was the Chief Scientist of Xerox Corporation until April 2002 and the Director of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) until June 2000.

JSB is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Education, and a fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence. He serves on numerous private and public boards of directors, including Amazon, and has been a trustee for nonprofits including the MacArthur Foundation and In-Q-Tel. He coauthored (with Paul Duguid) The Social Life of Information (Harvard Business Review Press, 2000) and (with John Hagel) The Only Sustainable Edge (Harvard Business Review Press, 2005) and The Power of Pull (Basic Books, 2012) and The New Culture of Learning (CreateSpace, 2011) coauthored with Doug Thomas at USC. His most recent book - Design Unbound, (MIT Press) is coauthored with Ann Pendleton-Jullian from Ohio State University and RAND.

JSB received a BA in mathematics and physics from Brown University in 1962 and a PhD in computer and communication sciences from the University of Michigan in 1970. His 11 honorary degrees include: May 2000, Brown University, ScD; July 2001, London Business School, Honorary ScD in Economics; May 2004, Claremont Graduate University, Honorary DHL; May 2005, University of Michigan, Honorary ScD; May 2009, North Carolina State University, Honorary ScD; May 2011, Illinois Institute of Technology, Honorary Doctor of Design; July 2013, Singapore Management University, ScD(CSIS); May 2014, ScD, Bates College, May 2015, Arizona State  University, Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters; June 2018, Pardee RAND Graduate School, Honorary Doctor of Public Policy; May 2019, Rochester Institute of Technology, Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters.

Sara Miller McCune is the founder and chair emeritus of SAGE Publishing. Guided by an entrepreneurial spirit and an unwavering dedication to academia, the then-24-year-old Sara founded SAGE in 1965 to start a company that would allow scholars to disseminate quality research in their own voices and break new ground in emerging fields of study. Today, Ms. McCune also serves as a director of SAGE Publications Ltd (London, founded in 1971) and Corwin, a SAGE company and leading publisher for educational administrators and teachers. SAGE set up subsidiaries in India in 1981, Singapore in 2006, Melbourne in 2015, and Toronto in 2018. While Ms. McCune remains actively involved in the company’s ongoing expansion and development, in keeping with a longstanding plan, in 2021 she transferred her voting shares and control of the company to an independent trust. The move ensures SAGE’s independence and will ultimately see a number of higher education institutions become SAGE’s beneficial owners.
Reflecting her longstanding interest in philanthropy, especially in promoting social, educational, economic, and environmental justice, Ms. McCune is founder and president of the McCune Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Ventura County, California, where SAGE’s home office is located. The foundation supports productive change through building social capital in two counties on California’s Central Coast.
In 2012, Ms. McCune received an honorary doctorate from her alma mater, Queens College (CUNY), for her visionary work as publisher, philanthropist, and entrepreneur. In 2014, she was awarded an honorary fellowship from Cardiff University and an honorary doctorate from Bath University and in 2016, Ms. McCune received honorary degrees from California State University Channel Islands and Sussex University. Ms. McCune is also an Honorary Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford. Additionally, she is an honorary alumna of University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), as well as a recipient of their highest honor, the Santa Barbara Medal.
In 2018, Ms. McCune was awarded the coveted London Book Fair Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her 50+ years working within the publishing industry. The award is a testament to her tireless support of social science research, her unwavering commitment to the global dissemination of knowledge, and her passionate belief that education is fundamental for the formation of healthy societies. In 2018 she was selected for membership in the prestigious American Philosophical Society (founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin), and in April of 2019, she received the Venky Narayanamurti Entrepreneurial Leadership Award from UCSB's College of Engineering.
An active supporter of the behavioral and social sciences, McCune serves on the New-York based Social Science Research Council’s Board of Directors and is a past chair of their Visiting Committee. Previously, she was a long-serving member of the board of directors of the American Academy of Political and Social Science and is a board member emerita of Stanford’s CASBS center. 

William “Bill” Neukom is the founder and chief executive officer of the World Justice Project, an organization devoted to promoting the rule of law throughout the world. He is a retired partner in the Seattle office of the international law firm K&L Gates, and is a lecturer at Stanford Law School where he teaches a seminar on the rule of law.

Bill was the lead lawyer for Microsoft for nearly 25 years, managing its legal, government and industry affairs, and philanthropic activities. He retired from Microsoft as its executive vice president of law and corporate affairs in 2002, and returned to his law firm and served as its chair from 2003 to 2007. He was president of the American Bar Association from 2007 to 2008 and received the ABA Medal in 2020. He was the chief executive office of the San Francisco Giants baseball team from 2008 to 2011. He joined the board of directors of Fortinet, Inc. in 2013 and currently serves as its lead independent director. He is a trustee emeritus of University of Puget Sound and Dartmouth College, where he served as chair of the board from 2004 to 2007. He is a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council at Stanford Law School and served as its chair from 2012 – 2015. He is chair of the External Advisory Board of the Population Health Initiative at the University of Washington.

He earned his AB from Dartmouth College and his LLB from Stanford University and has honorary degrees from Dartmouth College, Gonzaga University, the University of Puget Sound, and the University of South Carolina.

In 1995, Bill and his children founded the Neukom Family Foundation, which supports nonprofit organizations in the fields of education, the environment, health, human services, and justice.
He and his wife, Sally, live in Seattle and together have five children and sixteen grandchildren.