Board of Directors

Dr. Kathleen Merrigan is the first executive director of the Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems at Arizona State University. She also holds the position of the Kelly and Brian Swette Professor of Practice in Sustainable Food Systems with appointments in the School of Sustainability, College of Health Solutions and School of Public Affairs.

Previously, Kathleen was the Executive Director of Sustainability at George Washington University, where she led the GW Sustainability Collaborative and GW Food Institute. From 2009-2013, Kathleen served as the deputy secretary and COO of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, where she led the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food Initiative to support local food systems, was a key architect of First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign, and was the first woman to chair the Ministerial Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Kathleen serves as co-chair of AGree, board director of Food Corps and Marrone Bio Innovations, and steering committee member of the Council of Environmental Deans and Directors of the National Council for Science and the Environment. In 2010, Time magazine named Kathleen among the 100 most influential people in the world. She holds a Ph.D. in environmental planning and policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a MPA from the University of Texas, and a B.A. from Williams College.

Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig is a Senior Research Scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the co-located Columbia University Climate School’s Center for Climate Systems Research. At NASA GISS, she heads the Climate Impacts Group whose mission is to investigate the interactions of climate on systems and sectors important to human well-being, including agriculture, cities, and conservation.

Cynthia is the co-founder and member of the Executive Committee of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP), a globally integrated transdisciplinary study of climate change and the food system at regional, national, and global scales. In 2019, Cynthia was Coordinating Lead Author of the Food Security Chapter for the IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land. She is Co-Director of the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN) and Co-Editor of the First and Second UCCRN Assessment Reports on Climate Change and Cities (ARC3). In 2022, Cynthia received the World Food Prize, known as the “Nobel Prize for Food and Agriculture.”

Dawn Smalls is a strategic advisor and multi-disciplinary leader with experience across law, government, politics, and philanthropy. In 2021, she was named to the inaugural edition of “Northeast Trailblazers” by The American Lawyer and recognized by Crain’s New York Business as one of their “Notable Women in Law.” In 2020 she was featured as a “Power Player” in government and politics by City & State New York and The Amsterdam News.

In her private practice, Dawn litigates high stakes matters, and has successfully secured two temporary restraining orders, one against the Trump Campaign in 2016 and another in 2021 against the City of New York on behalf of the Coalition for the Homeless. She has fought for undocumented immigrants, victims of financial crime and voters facing intimidation, and served as commissioner of the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics. Dawn was Assistant to the White House Chief during the Clinton Administration and Executive Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services during the Obama Administration.

Dawn is a recognized civic leader. She also serves on the board of the Roosevelt Institute, a national progressive think tank and campus network that serves as the nonprofit partner to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, NY. She previously served on the national Board of the American Constitution Society, the nation’s leading progressive legal organization, with over 200 student and lawyer chapters in almost every state and on most law school campuses.

Susan Rockefeller is an award-winning conservationist, author, and filmmaker. She founded Musings, a digital magazine that curates sustainable ideas to provide inspirational calls to action. As Founder and Editor-in-Chief, she interviews thought leaders in entrepreneurship, responsible innovation, and social impact who are driving positive change.

Susan’s films explore a range of contemporary issues, such as ocean acidification and the future of ocean health, the confluence of race, poverty and illness, and global food sustainability, and have aired on HBO, PBS, and the Discovery Channel. Her 2009 film, Sea Change, received the NOAA 2010 Environmental Hero Award. She also produced and directed The Baby Shower, Green Fire: Lives of Commitment and Passion in a Fragile World, as well as Richard Nelson’s Alaska, which was part of an Emmy Award winning PBS series called Natural Heroes. 

Susan is the Chair of Oceana’s Ocean’s Council, a board member of the Alaska Conservation Foundation, and a member of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Global Leadership Council. She is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations and an advisor to Food Systems 6 and MADE SAFE. Susan received her B.A. from Hampshire College and M.A. from New York University.

Regina K. Scully is the founder and CEO of Artemis Rising Foundation, which is dedicated to media, education, and the arts that transform culture. A social entrepreneur, media activist, and filmmaker, she has produced over 200+ documentary films focused on pressing social justice issues. Regina is an Academy-nominated producer and winner of Emmy and Peabody Awards. Some of her significant films include What Would Sophia Loren Do? Fantastic Fungi, Fed Up, Miss Representation, and Won’t You Be My Neighbor. Scully is also the Founding Sponsor of the Athena Film Festival (NYC). She is a fifteen-plus-year member of Impact Partners, an organization supporting independent documentary storytelling. 

Regina funds Gamechanger Films, a development company dedicated to groundbreaking narratives that disrupt the status quo and promote cultural conversations. She is also the Founder and CEO of RPR Marketing Communications, a public relations and marketing agency in NYC. Regina co-founded the Making Waves Academy Charter School in Richmond, California, and Success Academy Schools in New York.

Regina is on the board of the Women’s Media Center, Harvard Women’s Leadership Board, the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, and the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences. Regina earned an B.A. from Georgetown University’s School of Language & Linguistics with concentrations in foreign languages and theology.

Diane Holland is the Global Chief Operating Officer of VML, the world’s largest creative agency combining brand experience, customer experience and commerce. With a career over 25 years Diane currently leads VML’s operational management and was a key member of the leadership team that oversaw the successful merger of VMLY&R and Wunderman Thompson in 2023.

Prior to VML, Diane was the Global Chief Financial Officer at Wunderman Thompson, a global marketing and communications agency. Diane led the agency’s financial and operational management and oversaw the successful merger of Wunderman and J. Walter Thompson to launch Wunderman Thompson in 2019. 

Diane sits on the board of WPP AUNZ. She is also on the board of KK Create, a Los Angeles based start-up bringing together music, creative and brands. She previously served on the board of Step Up, a non-profit organization that mentors teen girls from under-resourced communities.

As a founding partner of the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture and co-owner of Blue Hill, David Barber brings decades of experience in testing, scaling, and championing regenerative agrifood solutions to define a new future of food, from farmer to household. David is a guiding voice in the movement to reform American agrifood economics and has dedicated his career to reshaping finance’s role in the food economy. He continues to engage capital as a tool to serve soil health, biodiversity, and ultimately reverse the damage extractive economics have caused the planet.

David is an investor in the food and hospitality space through Almanac, a venture fund founded in 2015, which provides alternative capital to a small portfolio of change makers. David serves on the boards of Luke’s Lobster, MAD, and Caramoor Center for the Arts. He is also an advisor to S2G Ventures and Acre Investments, and serves as a member of the Board of Trustees for Connecticut College, the Jacob Burns Film Center, and the Collegiate School in New York City. He received a B.A. in Economics from Connecticut College and a M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Susan (Suz) Mac Cormac is a corporate partner at Morrison & Foerster LLP, an international law firm which assists businesses and organizations with complex challenges, and has worked there for twenty eight years. Suz is also Chair of the Firm & Energy and Social Enterprise and Impact Investing practices. Her practice focuses on late-stage financings, secondaries, other corporate transactions for investors, and investments for top impact investors. She is also an adjunct professor at Berkeley Law School, teaching a course on social enterprise and the intersection of corporate law, governance, and sustainability. 

Suz has taught at the Stanford Directors’ College on fiduciary duties, disclosure, and ESG, focusing on climate change. She is on the President’s Council of CERES and serves on the boards of Business for Social Responsibility and the Earth Genome Project. She has been recognized as California Attorney of the Year (2012 and 2015), Most Innovative North American Lawyer (2015), Most Influential Women in the Bay Area List (2018), and The Recorder’s List of Women Leaders in Tech Law (2019). Suz received her B.A. from Williams College and her J.D. and L.L.M. from Duke University Law School.

Peggy Dulany is a founding board member of the Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture. In 1986, Peggy founded the Synergos Institute, a global nonprofit organization that solves complex issues relating to poverty and creates opportunities for individuals and their communities to thrive. In 2001, she and her father, David Rockefeller, co-founded the Global Philanthropists Circle to help philanthropic families implement Synergos’ approach. During her career, Peggy led a dropout recovery program for public high school students and consulted with the United Nations, the Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. 

In addition to serving as Chair of Synergos, Peggy has sat on over thirty nonprofit and corporate boards, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Africa-America Institute, among others. She runs two socially responsible businesses: a grass-fed beef and guest ranch in Montana and an ecotourism operation in Namibia. Peggy is an honors graduate of Radcliffe College and holds a doctorate in education from Harvard University.

David Heard is the retired Global Head of Risk and Controls at WPP, a creative transformation company, where he led the design of system, process, and controls across the global organization. As a Public Accountant and Internal Auditor, David has built a career using his expertise in system effectiveness reviews, industry trends, financial analysis, and projections to provide advice to a wide range of clients.

David was also the Vice President of Internal Audits at Moody’s Corporation, a business and financial services company. During his thirteen-year career at PwC, David served as the Senior Manager and managed audits for Fortune 500 clients. David earned a B.A. in Industrial Economics and Business Management from University of Nottingham. He is currently attending the Institute of Culinary Education (ICE).

Adrian Miller is a food writer, attorney and certified barbecue judge. Adrian is Executive Director of the Colorado Council of Churches and is the first African American and the first layperson to hold that position. Adrian previously served as a special assistant to President Bill Clinton with his Initiative for One America—the first free-standing office in the White House to address issues of racial, religious, and ethnic reconciliation. Adrian also served as a senior policy analyst for Colorado governor, Bill Ritter Jr. He has also served on the board of the Southern Foodways Alliance. Adrian’s first book, Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time won the James Beard Foundation Award for Scholarship and Reference in 2014. His second book, The President’s Kitchen Cabinet: The Story of the African Americans Who Have Fed Our First Families, From the Washingtons to the Obamas was published on President’s Day, 2017. It was a finalist for a 2018 NAACP Image Award for “Outstanding Literary Work—Non-Fiction,” and the 2018 Colorado Book Award for History.

In 2018, Adrian was awarded the Ruth Fertel “Keeper of the Flame Award” by the Southern Foodways Alliance in recognition of his work on African American foodways. In 2019, Adrian lectured in the Masters of Gastronomy program at the Università di Scienze Gastronomiche (nicknamed “Slow Food University”) in Pollenzo, Italy. Adrian’s third book, Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue was published in Spring 2021. Adrian received an A.B. in International Relations from Stanford University in 1991, and a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1995. 

Zia Khan is the Senior Vice President for Innovation at The Rockefeller Foundation where he leads the Foundation’s work at the new frontiers of ideas, cross-sector coalitions, and breakthrough solutions. He joined the Foundation in 2009. Prior to his current focus on Innovation, he led the Foundation’s global program, strategy, research, and evaluation teams.

Before joining the Foundation, Zia spent a decade working as a strategy consultant at Katzenbach Partners. He advised a wide range of clients on senior leadership team effectiveness, strategy, innovation, and organizational performance. He developed the firm’s signature approaches in mobilizing the “informal organization” and co-authored the book Leading Outside the Lines with Jon Katzenbach. 

Since joining The Rockefeller Foundation, Zia has led global initiatives in clean energy, innovative finance, food systems, economic opportunity, urban development, and artificial intelligence. He writes, speaks, and advises on strategy and organizational models to achieve impact at scale.

Zia also serves on the boards of Atlas AI and DataKind. He also serves on advisory boards for the University College London Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose and Stanford Social Innovation Review Books. Zia holds a B.S. from Cornell University and a M.S. and PhD from Stanford University.