Bess Rothenberg
Deputy Vice President, Strategy and Impact
Bess Rothenberg is the deputy vice president for the Office of Strategy and Impact at the Ford Foundation. In this role, she oversees three cross-programmatic teams: the Office of Strategy and Learning, the Ford Global Fellowship, and the BUILD program.
The Office of Strategy and Learning is responsible for accompanying programs in strategy development, monitoring, evaluation, and cross-programmatic learning. The team is also responsible for supporting program staff around grantmaking effectiveness and data governance and analysis. The Ford Global Fellowship is a $50 million, 10-year investment that aims to connect and support the next generation of leaders from around the world who are advancing innovative solutions to end inequality. The BUILD program is a 12-year, $2 billion initiative that supports organizations and networks through multi-year flexible funding and institutional strengthening.
Prior to joining the Ford Foundation in 2016, Bess served as deputy director of research and evaluation at Wellspring Advisors. In that role, she led strategic planning for international and U.S.-based human rights work. Earlier, Bess was a senior program officer for Africa at the International Women’s Health Coalition and associate director of grants at American Jewish World Service. She has also served as assistant professor of applied sociology and African studies at Clemson University and as associate director with Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Human Rights.
Bess earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Virginia and her bachelor’s of arts degree in sociology from Boston University. She was a Fulbright doctoral fellow at Humboldt University in Berlin.
