The Skoll Fund, created in 1999, is a supporting organization associated with Silicon Valley Community Foundation of San Jose, California. The private foundation was launched in 2002. Each entity is governed by its own board of directors. The two entities share grantmaking, program and administrative resources. Both organizations were founded to support social entrepreneurship, and together they are known as the Skoll Foundation.
Skoll Foundation Board of Directors
Jeff Skoll is an entrepreneur devoted to creating a sustainable world of peace and prosperity. Over the last 17 years, he has crafted an innovative portfolio of philanthropic and commercial enterprises, each a distinctive catalyst for changing the trajectory of issues that most affect the survival and thriving of humanity. This portfolio includes the Skoll Foundation, Skoll Global Threats Fund, Participant Media, and Capricorn Investment Group—all coordinated under the Jeff Skoll Group umbrella. The Skoll entrepreneurial approach is unique: driving large-scale, permanent social impact by investing in a range of efforts that integrate powerful stories, data, capital markets, technology, partnerships, and organized learning networks. Operating independently from one another yet deeply connected through a shared vision, Skoll organizations galvanize public will, influence policy, and mobilize resources to accelerate the pace and depth of change. Jeff was the first full-time employee and President of eBay, where he experienced firsthand the power of combining entrepreneurship, technology, and trust in people. His work today embodies those fundamental lessons. All of Jeff’s organizations rely on the premise that people are fundamentally good, and that given the opportunity to do the right thing, they will.
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Jim DeMartini is the Chairman of Seiler LLP. In his role as a trusted advisor, Mr. DeMartini counsels clients in matters including income, estate and gift tax planning, wealth management, all facets of real estate, and charitable gift planning.
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Cheryl L. Dorsey is a trailblazer in the social entrepreneurship movement, and the president of Echoing Green, a global nonprofit that supports emerging social entrepreneurs and invests deeply in their ideas and leadership. Prior to leading this social impact organization, Cheryl was a social entrepreneur herself and received an Echoing Green Fellowship in 1992 to help launch The Family Van, a community-based mobile health unit in Boston. She became the first Echoing Green Fellow to head the social venture fund in 2002.
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Debra is a faculty member at Stanford University's d.school where she co-founded the Food Entrepreneurship, Education and Design (FEED) Collaborative, an initiative that cultivates radical innovation in the local food system by combining human centered design, experiential education and social entrepreneurship. She also works as an advisor to social ventures around the world.
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James Mwangi is the Executive Director of the Dalberg Group, a collection of impact-driven businesses that seek to champion inclusive and sustainable growth around the world, and a Partner with Dalberg Global Development Advisors. Mr. Mwangi founded and built up Dalberg’s presence in Africa, beginning with the Johannesburg office in 2007, Nairobi in 2008, and Dakar in 2009, and he served as Global Managing Partner and Chief Executive of Dalberg’s consulting business from 2010 to 2014.
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Lindsey Spindle is President of The Jeff Skoll Group. Working for global change-maker and renowned entrepreneur Jeff Skoll, Spindle helps oversee and connect Mr. Skoll’s network of philanthropic, commercial, and personal interests including Participant Media, the Skoll Foundation, and Capricorn Investment Group.
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Skoll Fund Board of Directors
Jeff Skoll is an entrepreneur devoted to creating a sustainable world of peace and prosperity. Over the last 17 years, he has crafted an innovative portfolio of philanthropic and commercial enterprises, each a distinctive catalyst for changing the trajectory of issues that most affect the survival and thriving of humanity. This portfolio includes the Skoll Foundation, Skoll Global Threats Fund, Participant Media, and Capricorn Investment Group—all coordinated under the Jeff Skoll Group umbrella. The Skoll entrepreneurial approach is unique: driving large-scale, permanent social impact by investing in a range of efforts that integrate powerful stories, data, capital markets, technology, partnerships, and organized learning networks. Operating independently from one another yet deeply connected through a shared vision, Skoll organizations galvanize public will, influence policy, and mobilize resources to accelerate the pace and depth of change. Jeff was the first full-time employee and President of eBay, where he experienced firsthand the power of combining entrepreneurship, technology, and trust in people. His work today embodies those fundamental lessons. All of Jeff’s organizations rely on the premise that people are fundamentally good, and that given the opportunity to do the right thing, they will.
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Larry Brilliant, MD MPH: Chair, Ending Pandemics; CEO, Pandefense; former Chair, National Bio-Surveillance Advisory Subcommittee; former Prof Epidemiology, UMich, Head of Google.org, CEO Skoll Global Threats, smallpox eradication program WHO, CDC, board member Skoll Foundation, Salesforce.org founder, Seva Foundation, co-founder The Well and author of Sometimes Brilliant and The Management of Smallpox Eradication. TIME100 and Ted Prize; multiple honorary doctorates, CNN on-air analyst @larrybrilliant. info@larrybrilliant.com
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Jim DeMartini is the Chairman of Seiler LLP. In his role as a trusted advisor, Mr. DeMartini counsels clients in matters including income, estate and gift tax planning, wealth management, all facets of real estate, and charitable gift planning.
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Kirk Hanson is Senior Fellow and former Executive Director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, where he held the John Courtney Murray, S.J. Endowed University Professorship. In 2001, he retired after 23 years teaching at the Stanford Graduate School of Business to head the Markkula Center, one of the most active ethics centers in the world with a staff of 26. He expanded the Center's staff, budget and influence in his 17 years there and stepped down in August 2018. Hanson writes on managing the ethical and public behavior of corporations and other complex organizations. His current research interests include the design of corporate ethics programs and the responsibilities of boards for the ethical culture of their organizations. He has been fascinated by ethical issues which arise in Silicon Valley companies and life, and formerly wrote a column on workplace ethics. Hanson has been an ethics consultant to over 100 public corporations, government entities and nonprofit organizations. He has served on the boards of several foundations and nonprofit organizations, and currently serves on the board of the Skoll Foundation. Hanson received the 1997 John Gardner Award from the American Leadership Forum Silicon Valley for contributions to the Silicon Valley community, the 2007 Aspen Institute Lifetime Achievement Award for contributions to the study of business and society, and the 2012 Master Ethics Teacher Award from Brigham Young University's Marriott School of Business. He received honorary doctorates from the University of Portland in 2013 and Santa Clara University in 2018.
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Pat Mitchell is a lifelong advocate for women and girls. At every step of her career, Mitchell has broken new ground for women, leveraging the power of media as a journalist, an Emmy award-winning and Oscar-nominated producer to tell women’s stories and increase the representation of women onscreen and off. Transitioning to an executive role, she became the president of CNN Productions, and the first woman president and CEO of PBS and the Paley Center for Media. Today, her commitment to connect and strengthen a global community of women leaders continues as a conference curator, advisor and mentor.
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