Melissa A. Berman

Melissa Berman is the founding President and CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Inc. (RPA), an innovative nonprofit philanthropy service launched by the Rockefeller family in 2002 to help donors create thoughtful, effective philanthropy throughout the world. RPA develops strategic plans, conducts research, manages foundations and trusts, structures major gifts, coordinates donor collaboratives, and provides regranting and fiscal sponsorship services. It has offices in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and, most recently, London.

Ms. Berman has led RPA since its inception, building it into one of the world’s leading philanthropic advisory, grantmaking, research and project management services. Under her leadership, RPA developed and published the “Philanthropy Roadmap” series of donor guides with support from the Gates Foundation. She also developed and leads RPA’s “The Theory of the Foundation” research initiative, and authored three of the initiative’s reports.

A frequent public speaker, Ms. Berman has been a guest lecturer at universities across the U.S., Europe and Asia, including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Duke, Oxford, Sun-Yat Sen and Beijing Normal. As a widely-recognized expert in philanthropy, Ms. Berman has been profiled in the New York Times and the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Her ideas and views have been featured in The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Financial Times, and the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Previously, Ms. Berman served as Senior Vice President, Research and Program Development at The Conference Board, a global nonprofit, independent business research organization.

Ms. Berman holds a B.A. from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from Stanford University.