The Ford Foundation today announced the election of Henry Ford III to serve as a member of its Board of Trustees, marking the first time in more than 40 years that a member of the Ford family will occupy a board seat. Mr. Ford is the great-grandson of Edsel Ford, who created the Ford Foundation in 1936.

Mr. Ford currently serves as a member of the corporate strategy team at Ford Motor Company. Since joining the company in 2006, he has spent time in labor relations, as a member of the UAW-Ford negotiations team; in purchasing, as a vehicle programs analyst; and in marketing and sales, working in global product marketing, as the Lincoln marketing lead for the western United States, and as the global marketing manager for Ford Performance.

Prior to joining Ford Motor Company, Mr. Ford worked for Carney, Sandoe and Associates, where he recruited new teachers and helped place them in schools across the country. He then became a teacher himself, teaching middle school and high school math and history. He holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College and a M.B.A. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management.

“We are thrilled to welcome Henry Ford III to the Ford Foundation Board of Trustees,” said Darren Walker, president of the foundation. “In recent years we’ve made a series of major investments to help southeastern Michigan, building on years of commitment to the region in which we were founded. Henry has been an advocate for these efforts, and I am delighted he will bring his dedication to social justice to his board service. Although we were established to be an independent institution, our recent efforts in southeastern Michigan have marked a reconnection with the Ford family, coming full circle with Henry’s election to our board.”

The Ford Foundation has made a sustained commitment to its heritage, recognizing Detroit and its metropolitan area as an essential venue for tackling inequality in all its forms. That process began with the Grand Bargain in 2013, to which the foundation contributed $125 million as part of a group of funders investing nearly $400 million to help the city of Detroit emerge from bankruptcy in an equitable manner that preserved the rights of retired city employees and protected the collection of the Detroit Institute of the Arts.

Two years later, the foundation’s 16-member Board of Trustees gathered in Detroit for its first meeting in the city in decades, and hosted a series of events there affirming the foundation’s commitment to supporting a bright future for the city. In 2017, the foundation opened an office in Detroit and selected Detroit native Kevin Ryan to manage it. The foundation makes more than $30 million in grants to organizations in and around Detroit each year, including its ongoing $12.5 million annual payment to fulfill the Grand Bargain. That work plays an important part in the foundation’s efforts to address racial injustice and economic inequality, and advance democratic participation, across the US.

Mr. Ford brings experience in the social sector to his role as trustee. He has served on the boards of schools in Michigan and Massachusetts, and currently serves on the advisory boards of Henry Ford College in Dearborn and Bridging Communities in Detroit. He also serves on the boards of The Henry Ford Museum, Operation Hope, and Neighborhood Villages, a nonprofit group he helped start that aims to partner with community-based organizations to increase the accessibility of early child care for all families.

“I am honored to become a member of the Board of Trustees of the Ford Foundation,” said Mr. Ford. “The foundation’s commitment to ending inequality and building a fair and inclusive economy is more critical today than ever before, and it is impossible to overstate its role in reinvigorating the city of Detroit. I am both eager and honored to join my fellow trustees in shepherding the foundation my family created more than 80 years ago.”

Henry Ford III becomes the first Ford to sit on the foundation’s Board of Trustees since his grandfather, Henry Ford II, resigned in 1976 after 33 years of service, variously as president, chair, and a member of the Board of Trustees. Henry Ford II created the modern Ford Foundation, guiding it on a deliberate process of becoming independent—first in giving it an international mission, then in expanding the board beyond the family, followed by the foundation’s move to New York City in 1953, and eventually through the divestment of its holdings in Ford stock.

Built upon this history, the Ford Foundation has become one of the leading philanthropies in the world, with a $13 billion endowment and over $600 million in annual grantmaking. It has made more than $50 billion in grants over the course of its existence (in today’s dollars), seeding such innovations as the Green Revolution, public television, microfinance, the human rights movement, international scholarships for thousands of leaders, and movements to advance civil rights in the US, end apartheid in South Africa, and advance rights and opportunity for women and girls worldwide—among many other areas of contribution.

Ford Foundation trustees are elected by its board for terms of six years. Trustees set broad policy relating to grantmaking, geographic focus, investments, governance and professional standards, and they oversee internal and independent audits. The foundation’s trustees hail from four continents and have extensive experience in the worlds of higher education, business and finance, technology, law, government, and the nonprofit sector.

“On behalf of the entire board, we are excited to welcome Henry Ford III to the Ford Foundation,” said Dr. Francisco Cigarroa, chair of the foundation’s Board of Trustees. “We’re so proud of our history and heritage in Michigan, and welcoming Henry to the board really reinforces that. He’s a voice for fairness and equity in his work and pursuits, and will make a great addition to an already outstanding group of trustees.”