Melissa Berman

Melissa A. Berman served as the founding President and CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Inc., an innovative nonprofit philanthropy service launched by the Rockefeller family from January 2002 through January 2024. Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors’ mission is to accelerate philanthropy in pursuit of a just world.  Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors annually manages or facilitates about US $600 million in giving to more than 35 countries.  It has more than 100 full-time core staff in the U.S., Europe and Africa, and an additional 500 life-of-project employees around the world. 

Ms. Berman built Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors 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” donor guides with support from the Gates Foundation.  She developed RPA’s flagship research initiative, “The Theory of the Foundation,” including The Philanthropy Framework and Operating Archetypes publications.  

A frequent speaker, Ms. Berman has been a guest lecturer at universities around the world including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Duke, IMD, Sciences Po, Oxford, Monterrey (Mexico), Sun-Yat Sen, and Beijing Normal universities.  As a widely-recognized expert in philanthropy, Ms. Berman has been profiled and quoted often in major media. 

Ms. Berman is a board member of Equality Now, Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation and Candid (the combined Foundation Center and Guidestar).  She is an adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Business School, where she also serves on the Advisory Board for the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise.  In addition, she is a Visiting Fellow at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University, and guest faculty for the Schwarzman College of Tsinghua University (Beijing). 

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