George Soros’ Open Society Foundations announced a leadership change Monday with its president Mark Malloch-Brown stepping down in June, set to be replaced by a senior leader, Binaifer Nowrojee.
She will be the first woman from the global south to lead OSF.
Soros, the billionaire investor, said in a statement that when he started the foundations decades ago, he hoped its work would be global in scope.
“At the outset, that was merely an aspiration. But now I feel that this ambition has been fulfilled” with Nowrojee’s appointment as president, Soros said.
Most recently, Nowrojee, who is Kenyan from an Indian family, was OSF’s vice president of programs and part of a small senior leadership team overseeing a large transition that started in 2021.
Last summer, the foundations announced that Alex Soros, one of George Soros’ sons, had taken over as chair of its board in December 2022.
Along with that generational change in leadership, OSF said it would layoff as much as 40% of its staff worldwide and move to a new operating model.
At the time, Alex Soros told The Wall Street Journal that he was “more political” than his father and that he intended to fund political issues in the U.S. An OSF spokesperson said Alex Soros was speaking in his personal capacity and not about the direction of the foundation.
“We have endured a prolonged period of disruption, and this has not come without pain and loss, as many of you have said goodbye to colleagues and ended relationships with long-time grantees,” Nowrojee said in a note to staff Monday.
“As we navigate the remaining elements of change, I promise, first and foremost, to remain committed to open society values, and to George Soros’s vision of critical thinking, local knowledge, and risk-taking.”
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