Heather Grady

Biography

Heather Grady is a Vice President in the San Francisco office of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA), and leads the organization’s strategy and program development in global philanthropy, as well as in systems change approaches to philanthropy. Heather advises clients from the US and other countries on philanthropic strategy and a variety of thematic areas. She leads the Scaling Solutions toward Shifting Systems initiative, which encourages funders to collaborate to place longer-term, adaptive resources to accelerate scalable solutions and impact that target systemic changes to pressing global problems. She was a co-founder of the SDG Philanthropy Platform to engage philanthropy in the Sustainable Development Goals. Heather’s approach has been shaped 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. Prior to moving to the Bay Area, she was a Vice President at the Rockefeller Foundation, where she oversaw an annual grantmaking budget averaging $65 million supporting a range of portfolio areas including climate, health, employment and agriculture. She also served as the Managing Director of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative, founded by former Irish President Mary Robinson. She is currently an Adjunct Professor at the China Global Philanthropy Institute and was previously an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, where she created their first course on climate change and human rights. Heather has degrees from Harvard University and Smith College. She serves on the boards of the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, Forum for the Future, the Wildlife Justice Commission, Doc Society, and the Dropbox Foundation. She is a member of NationSwell, and has served on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on International Governance, Public-Private Cooperation and Sustainable Development.