CEOs
Profiles in Commitment
Raymond C. MoleyCEO: 1919–1923Raymond Moley, best known as a leading member of the “brain trust” that guided Franklin D. Roosevelt into the White House and as FDR’s first assistant secretary of state, became the first full-time director of the Cleveland...Read Bio in Timeline 
Carlton K. MatsonCEO: 1924–1928Carlton K. Matson assumed the directorship of the Cleveland Foundation in September 1924, after serving as interim director following the departure of Raymond Moley. Like his predecessor, Matson was a graduate (class of 1915) of Oberlin College....Read Bio in Timeline 
Leyton E. CarterCEO: 1928–1953The Cleveland Foundation board set high leadership expectations for its third director, Leyton E. Carter (see video), recommending that the former political science professor and municipal researcher lend his personal expertise to civic endeavors to a much...Read Bio in Timeline 
J. Kimball JohnsonCEO: 1953–1967Chicago native J. Kimball Johnson enjoyed a pioneering career as the top Cleveland administrator for the federal government’s alphabet soup of new social service agencies before becoming the fourth director of the Cleveland Foundation. Having ultimately been...Read Bio in Timeline 
James A. NortonCEO: 1968–1973James A. Norton (see video), the Cleveland Foundation’s fifth director, came to the position on January 1, 1968, after leading an affiliated philanthropy, the Greater Cleveland Associated Foundation (GCAF). As GCAF’s director for its intentionally brief, six-year...Read Bio in Timeline 
Barbara Haas RawsonCEO: 1973–1974Barbara Haas Rawson was a well-known volunteer active in Cleveland’s League of Women Voters, Citizens League and the PTA in her home suburb of Shaker Heights before she joined the staff of the Greater Cleveland Associated Foundation...Read Bio in Timeline 
Homer C. WadsworthCEO: 1974–1983Determining the doable was an early priority of the individual chosen after a national search to succeed Barbara Haas Rawson as the seventh director of the Cleveland Foundation. At age 60, Homer Clark Wadsworth (see video) was one of philanthropy’s...Read Bio in Timeline 
Steven A. MinterCEO: 1984–2003Steven A. Minter would be given the opportunity of a lifetime in mid-career to help rebuild his native region. In 1984, at age 46, he became the eighth chief executive of the Cleveland Foundation. Minter was the...Read Bio in Timeline 
Ronald B. RichardCEO: 2003–PresentRonald B. Richard’s first day of work at the Cleveland Foundation on July 1, 2003, represented a sort of homecoming. As a child, Ronn had enjoyed spending several summers in Cleveland, visiting with his cousins in suburban...Read Bio in Timeline To date, nine individuals have served as the top staff leader of the Cleveland Foundation. The first seven held the title of director. The eighth was named executive director and, starting in 2000, given the additional title of president. The present holder of the position is president and chief executive officer.
Interestingly, only three of the persons appointed to lead the Cleveland Foundation had previous experience with philanthropy. Several came to the job from careers in the social services. Others had worked in communications, academia or business. Their tenures at the foundation have varied from one year to one-quarter of a century.
But no matter their backgrounds or the length of their administrations, the chief executive officers of the Cleveland Foundation have had one thing in common: their deep commitment to advancing the foundation’s mission of enhancing the “lives of all residents of Greater Cleveland, now and for generations to come, by working together with our donors to build community endowment, address needs through grantmaking, and provide leadership on key community issues.”