The New York–based Ford Foundation, one of the leading private philanthropic organizations in the US, has named Heather Gerken as its next president. Succeeding Darren Walker, Gerken will be the 11th president of the foundation and the second woman ever to lead the organization in its nearly 90-year history. She will officially start at the foundation on November 1.
Gerken has been the dean of the Yale Law School since 2017, and is currently serving her second term, which was scheduled to conclude in 2027. She was the first woman to serve as the law school’s dean. Last year, she was seen as a candidate to be the president of Yale University, according to the New York Times.
During her tenure as dean, Gerken has focused on increasing the diversity within the law school. She launched two pipeline–to–law school programs, which aim to help members of underrepresented or underserved communities navigate the law school application process, as well as creating the first full-tuition scholarships for students at the school who have the highest demonstrable income-based needs. Yale Law School classes have also grown more diverse, with higher numbers of veterans, first-generation college students, and students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.
In a letter announcing Gerken’s appointment, Ford Foundation board chair Francisco Cigarroa wrote, “Heather is a thoughtful and innovative leader and a tireless advocate for equity, justice, and values of democracy—her life’s work resonates with the core mission of the Ford Foundation. At Yale, she led initiatives to increase the pipeline to law school for underrepresented students and bolstered the school’s commitment to need-based aid.”
Gerken is also a leading scholar on democracy and constitutional law. She is also a founder of the “nationalist school” of federalism, which she described in a 2014 essay for the Yale Law Journal as thinking about how federalism (decentralized government) and nationalism (centralized government) are not diametrically opposed but how “federalism [can] serve decidedly nationalist ends.”
Additionally, Gerken runs the San Francisco Affirmative Litigation Project, a legal clinic that is a partnership between Yale Law School and the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office in which students work with the city attorney’s office “to conceive, develop, and litigate some of the most innovative public-interest lawsuits in the country,” according to its website.
Outside of her legal work, Gerken is a trustee of both the Mellon Foundation, one of the largest arts funders in the US, and Princeton University, where she received her bachelor’s degree in 1991. She was also a senior adviser to the Obama presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012. Her “Democracy Index” proposal, which ranks election systems across the country, was adopted as the Election Performance Index by Pew Charitable Trusts in 2013.
Gerken’s appointment comes after a national search began last summer following Walker’s announcement that he would step down as president after 12 years.
“Darren is a visionary leader who oversaw some of the foundation’s most influential work, from the evolution of its mission to focus on inequality and social justice to improving the way Ford and many of its peer foundations conduct grantmaking,” Cigarroa said in his letter. “He leaves the Ford Foundation and the philanthropic sector stronger and even more effective in serving communities around the globe.”
