Our Board of Directors
Robert L. Hughes
Robert L. Hughes is director of K-12 Education in the United States Program at the Gates Foundation, ensuring that all students are prepared for success in college and career.
Before joining the Foundation in 2016, Bob was president of New Visions for Public Schools, a New York City school network of 70 district schools serving approximately 45,000 students. Under his leadership, New Visions created 99 district and seven charter public schools, provided mentoring services to hundreds of new principals, developed school-based certification programs for teachers and principals, and created suites of data and system tools to streamline school operations and track student progress toward graduation and college.
Sandy Paik
Sandy Paik is General Counsel of the Tower Companies, an integrated real estate firm that envisions a world where buildings inspire and enrich the lives of their occupants and create positive social change. In this world, people seek out buildings that improve their health and well-being, connect them to thriving communities, and help sustain the environment.
Sandy is passionate about green finance and currently participates on Fairfax County’s steering committee to launch a green bank in Northern Virginia, and she previously served as General Counsel with the start-up team of DC Green Bank.
Sandy’s volunteer work includes service on the Boards of Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food & Agriculture, Community Opportunity Fund, and Association of Corporate Counsel National Capital Region (ACC NCR). Sandy also serves as Co-Chair of the Steering Committee of the Leadership Academy, a leadership development program of Association of Corporate Counsel National Capital Region (ACC NCR).
Sandy is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center (2003), earned an M.A. in Policy Analysis and Evaluation from Stanford University School of Education (1999), and a B.A. in History at Tufts University (1995).
Susan Butler Plum
Susan Butler Plum is Senior Advisor after serving as Founding Director for 32 years of the Skadden Foundation, which awards two-year grants to 28 public interest attorneys per year. The foundation was established in April 1988 and has made grants to 820 attorneys who provide civil legal services to the poor.
Prior to joining Skadden, Ms. Butler Plum was the director of the Botwinick-Wolfensohn Foundation and program director of the Booth Ferris Foundation. She also was the associate director for the Environmental Defense Fund. She is a graduate of the University of Miami and a member of Columbia Law School’s Public Interest Advisory Board.
Jonathan F.P. Rose
Jonathan F.P. Rose’s business, public policy and not-for-profit work focus on creating a more environmentally, socially and economically responsible world. In 1989, Mr. Rose founded Jonathan Rose Companies LLC, a multi-disciplinary real estate development, planning, consulting and investment firm. The firm has completed $2.3 billion of transformational work, in close collaboration with cities and not-for-profits. Mr. Rose is a thought leader in a wide range of urban issues, and the development of communities of opportunity. He has received the MIT’s Visionary Leadership Award, The Urban Land Institute’s global award for Excellence and many other awards for his work.
Carter Stewart
Carter Stewart is executive vice president for programs at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. He works closely with the Foundation's president, board, and staff to shape the Foundation's funding priorities and programmatic direction.
Prior to joining the Foundation, Mr. Stewart served as a managing director of the venture philanthropy Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation (DRK) where he played a lead role in sourcing new investments and grantees—primarily early-stage, justice-oriented organizations—and then worked closely with those organizations on strategy, scaling, organizational capacity building, and leadership development.
Our Staff
Dawn Mottram
Dawn Mottram is the Executive Director of Community Opportunity Fund (COF). Dawn oversees all of COF’s activity, which includes both the delivery of health-based interventions in affordable housing, as well as the research and analysis of the interventions.