George Soros’ Open Society Foundations name new president after years of layoffs and transition
NEW YORK — George Soros’ Open Society Foundations announced a leadership change on Monday, with President Mark Malloch-Brown stepping down and being replaced by a senior leader, Binaifer Nowrojee.
Soros, the billionaire investor, said in a statement that when he founded the foundations decades ago, he hoped the work would have global reach.
“Initially that was just an ambition. But now I feel that this ambition has been fulfilled” with the appointment of Nowrojee as president, Soros said.
Most recently, Nowrojee served as OSF’s vice president of programs and was part of a small senior leadership team that oversaw a major transition that kicked off last summer when the foundations announced that Alex Soros, one of George Soros’ sons, would had taken over chairmanship of the board. .
Along with this generational change in leadership, OSF said it would lay off as much as 40% of its workforce globally and transition to a new business model. During the transition, OSF said it was limiting new grantmaking for at least six months, until February 2024. OSF had more than $5 billion in assets in 2022 and made $364 million in charitable donations in 2022, according to its tax returns.
Alex Soros told The Wall Street Journal at the time that he was “more political” than his father and that he planned to finance political issues in the US.
Nowrojee has held multiple senior leadership roles at OSF, including overseeing its establishment in East Africa and directing its work in Asia and the Pacific. As a lawyer, she has expertise in prosecuting sexual violence.
The foundations said in their announcement Monday that it was an opportune time for Malloch-Brown to step down “after largely completing the transformation” at OSF.
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