About

Heather Grady is a Vice President in the San Francisco office of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and leads the organization?s strategy and program development in global philanthropy, including collaboratives and research. At RPA, in addition to advising clients, she leads the SDG Philanthropy Platform, a collaboration to encourage philanthropy to engage more meaningfully in the Sustainable Development Goals/Agenda 2030, and the Scaling Solutions initiative, which encourages funders to place longer-term, responsive and adaptive resources to accelerate scalable solutions that target systemic changes focused on pressing global issues. Heather also serves as an Adjunct Professor at the China Global Philanthropy Institute. 

Heather?s approach has been shaped in part by two decades of living in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, managing long-term development and humanitarian programs for Oxfam Great Britain and Save the Children that focused on a range of themes including education, livelihoods, gender equality, health, agriculture and microfinance. Following her time outside the US she served as the Managing Director of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative, founded by former Irish President Mary Robinson, and was an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University. In 2010 she joined the Rockefeller Foundation as Vice President for Foundation Initiatives where she oversaw an annual grantmaking budget averaging $65 million. She managed initiatives spanning several themes including health, agriculture, employment, climate change, transportation policy, and impact investing. 

Heather has degrees from the Kennedy School at Harvard and Smith College. She is conversant in Chinese and Vietnamese. She has co-authored books and publishes regularly on philanthropy and social investing. She serves on a number of Boards and Advisory Groups including The B Team, the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, the Wildlife Justice Commission, Forum for the Future, and the sustainable fashion company Piece&Co, and has been a member of the WEF Global Future Council on International Governance, Public-Private Cooperation and Sustainable Development.