The International Rescue Committee is governed by a volunteer, unpaid Board of Directors. In addition, the IRC Board of Advisors provides advice on policy, advocacy, fundraising and public relations.
Update - March 31, 2022: Kerwin Charles, Victoria Long Foley, Kenneth French, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and Abraham Verghese elected to the IRC Board
Timothy F. Geithner
Co-Chair, Board of Directors
Sally Susman
Co-Chair, Board of Directors
Eduardo G. Mestre
Chair, IRC Board of Advisors
Liv Ullmann
Honorary Vice-Chair, International
Oscar Raposo
Treasurer, Secretary
David Miliband
President and Chief Executive Officer
Alan Batkin
Katherine Farley
Winston Lord
Sarah O’Hagan
Thomas Schick
James Strickler
Jonathan Wiesner
Tracy R. Wolstencroft
Chairs, Emeriti
Board of Directors
Masood Ahmed
President, Center for Global Development
Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein
Former UN Human Rights Chief
Clifford S. Asness
Managing and Founding Principal, AQR Capital Management
Dr. Titilola Banjoko
Chair, Board of Directors, IRC-UK
George Biddle
Chairman, World Connect
Kerwin Charles
Indra K. Nooyi Dean and Frederic D. Wolfe Professor of Economics, Policy, and Management, Yale School of Management
Susan Dentzer
Visiting Fellow, Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy
Cheryl Cohen Effron
Founder, Conjunction Fund
Laurence D. Fink
Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, BlackRock, Inc.
Victoria Long Foley
Mediator, New York Peace Institute
Kenneth R. French
Roth Family Distinguished Professor of Finance,Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College
Timothy F. Geithner
75th U.S. Secretary of the Treasury; President, Warburg Pincus
Udi Grofman
Partner, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison
Becca Heller
Executive Director, International Refugee Assistance Project
Maria Hummer-Tuttle
Uzodinma Iweala, M.D.
CEO, The Africa Center
Matthew M. Johnson
Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole LLP
Andrew Klaber
CEO, Bedford Ridge Capital
Steven Klinsky
Founder and CEO, New Mountain Capital
David A. Levine
Former Chief Economist, Sanford C. Bernstein
François-Xavier (FX) de Mallmann
Chairman of the Investment Banking Division, Goldman Sachs
Prakash Melwani
Senior Managing Director, Blackstone
Eduardo G. Mestre
Chairman of Global Advisory, Evercore Partners
David Miliband
President and CEO, International Rescue Committee
Jillian Muller
Janet Napolitano
Professor of Public Policy, UC Berkeley
Viet Thanh Nguyen
Pulitzer Prize Winning Author; Aerol Arnold Chair of English and Professor of English, American Studies and Ethnicity, and Comparative Literature, University of Southern California
Michael J. O’Neill
Former Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, American Express Company
Dr. Kathleen Pike, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology, Departments of Psychiatry and Epidemiology, Columbia University Medical Center
Omar Saeed
Pamela Saunders-Albin
Gillian Sorensen
Former UN Assistant Secretary-General
Joshua L. Steiner
Chairman of the Board of Castleton Commodities, and Senior Adviser, Bloomberg, L.P.
Sally Susman
Executive Vice President, Corporate Affairs, Pfizer Inc.
Mona K. Sutphen
Senior Advisor, The Vistria Group
Tony Tamer
Founder and Co-CEO, H.I.G. Capital
Dr. Merryl H. Tisch
Chairman, SUNY Board of Trustees
E. Eric Tokat
Partner, Centerview Partners
Abraham Verghese
Linda R. Meier and Joan F. Lane Provostial Professor, and Vice Chair for the Theory and Practice of Medicine, School of Medicine at Stanford University
P. Maureen White
Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University
Kathrin Wieland
Co-Founder & CEO TolaData GmbH
Leah Joy Zell
Founding Partner, Lizard Investors, LLC
Board of Advisors
Morton I. Abramowitz
Senior Fellow, The Century Foundation and President Emeritus, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Laurent Alpert
Senior Counsel, Cleary Gottlieb, Steen and Hamilton
F. William Barnett
Former Director, McKinsey & Company, Inc.
Alan R. Batkin
Chairman and CEO, Converse Associates, Inc
Christoph Becker
Chief Executive Officer and Chief Creative Officer, cbc
Georgette F. Bennett
President, Tanenbaum Center for Inter-religious Understanding and Founder, Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees
Vera Blinken
Chair, Primavera Mobil Mammography Program; Vice Chair, Foundation of Art Preservation in Embassies; Co-Chair, Blinken European Institute/Columbia University
Betsy Blumenthal
Senior Managing Director, Kroll Associates
W. Michael Blumenthal
Former Secretary of the U.S. Treasury and Founding Director of Jewish Museum Berlin
Mary Boies
Counsel, Boies Schiller Flexner LLP
Andrew H. Brimmer
Partner, Joele Frank, Wilkinson, Brimmer, Katcher
Jennifer Brokaw, M.D.
Associate Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine, University of California, San Francisco
Tom Brokaw
Special Correspondent, NBC News
Glenda Burkhart
Frederick Burkle, M.D.
Senior International Public Policy; Scholar at Woodrow Wilson; International Center for Scholars
Néstor Carbonell
Former Vice President for International Public Affairs, PepsiCo
Robert M. Cotten
Trinh D. Doan
Senior Vice President, Bank of America
Jodie Eastman
Member; Leadership Council, New York Stem Cell Foundation
Andra Ehrenkranz
Laura Entwistle
Co-Founder and CEO, EmancipAction
Katherine Farley
Former Senior Managing Director Brazil, China & Global Corporate Marketing, Tishman Speyer
H.R.H. Princess Firyal of Jordan
Jeffrey E. Garten
Dean Emeritus, Yale School of Management
Corydon J. Gilchrist
President/Owner, KCG Holdings I, LLC
Robin Gosnell
Evan G. Greenberg
Chairman and CEO, Chubb
Maurice R. Greenberg
Chairman and CEO, C.V. Starr & Co
Sarah K. Griffin
Ziad Haider
Head of Geopolitical Risk, McKinsey & Company
Philip Hammarskjold
CEO & Managing Director, Hellman & Friedman LLC
Leila Heckman
Managing Director, Lebenthal Asset Management
Karen Hein, M.D.
Former President of the William T. Grant Foundation
Lucile P. Herbert
Volunteer, International Rescue Committee
John Holmes
Chair Emeritus, Board of Directors, IRC-UK
Bob Horne
President, ZS Fund LP
Badr Jafar
CEO, Crescent Enterprises
Aly S. Jeddy
Director, McKinsey & Company
Marvin Josephson
Founding Chairman, ICM Holdings, Inc.
M. Farooq Kathwari
Chairman, President and CEO, Ethan Allen Interiors, Inc.
Caroline Kennedy
Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan
Dr. Christina Kirby
Henry A. Kissinger
Former U.S. Secretary of State; Chairman, Kissinger Associates
Yong Kwok
Reynold Levy
Former President, Lincoln Center
Winston Lord
Former U.S. Ambassador, China
John J. Mack
Chair Emeritus, Morgan Stanley
Vincent A. Mai
Chairman and CEO, Cranemere, Inc.
Robert E. Marks
President and Chairman, Marks Ventures, LLC
Roman Martinez IV
Former Managing Director, Lehman Brothers, Private Investor
Kati Marton
Author and Journalist
David Miliband
President and CEO, International Rescue Committee
W. Allen Moore
Distinguished Fellow, The Henry Stimson Center
Sara Moss
Executive Vice President and General Counsel, The Estée Lauder Companies
Indra Nooyi
Former Chairman and CEO, PepsiCo
Sarah O’Hagan
Former Co-Chair, International Rescue Committee Board; Consultant
Anjali Pant M.D., M.P.H
Scott Pelley
Anchor and Managing Editor, CBS Evening News and Correspondent, 60 Minutes
Dylan Pereira
PwC Financial Services Advisory
David L. Phillips
Director of the Program on Peace-building and Rights at Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights
Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan
Milbrey Rennie
Consultant
Condoleezza Rice
Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Gideon Rose
Editor, Foreign Affairs
George Rupp
Former President and CEO, International Rescue Committee
George Sarlo
Managing Director, Walden Venture Capital
Reshma Saujani
Founder and CEO, Girls Who Code
Tom Schick
Former Co-Chair, International Rescue Committee Board
Dr. Rajiv Shah
President, Rockefeller Foundation
James T. Sherwin
J.D.; Hon LLD; Director, Hunter Douglas N.V.
Jennifer Sime
Chief Operating Officer, Physicians for Human Rights
James C. Strickler, M.D.
Emeritus Professor Medicine and Community Medicine, Emeritus Dean, Dartmouth Medical School
Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr.
Liv Ullmann
Josh Weston
Honorary Chairman of the Board and former CEO, ADP
Jonathan L. Wiesner
CEO, Phenix Strategic Partners
William T. Winters
CEO, Standard Chartered
Tracy R. Wolstencroft
Former President & CEO, National Geographic
Heidrick & Struggles
Since the International Rescue Committee (IRC) was first founded at the request of Albert Einstein in 1933, our global team of more than 17,000 staff have helped people upended by conflict and crisis to survive, recover, and regain control of their lives. Today we work in more than 40 countries and over 20 U.S. and European cities, from conflict-affected countries like Yemen to resettlement communities like Boise, Idaho.
We focus our support in five areas: ensuring safety from harm, improving health, increasing access to education, improving economic wellbeing, and ensuring people have the power to influence decisions that affect their lives. In all our programming, we address the unique needs of women and girls (who represent the majority of those displaced)—and the barriers to progress everywhere we work.
Changing needs in a changing world
In the almost 90 years since our founding, the world has changed and so have the needs of the people we serve. Today a staggering 82.4 million people are displaced as result of conflict, persecution and crisis, including 26.4 million refugees, a record 48 million internally displaced persons, and 4.1 million asylum seekers. People are displaced for longer periods than ever (most for over a decade) as conflicts (such as that in Afghanistan) average 20 years in length. The climate crisis, projected to displace as many as 150 million people by 2050, further exacerbates these trends, as does COVID-19.
A strategic vision for 100 years of action
The goal of Strategy100 is to make our programs a model for the global humanitarian response. We aim to deliver high-quality, cost-effective programs—on our own and with local partners. We will combine research on programs that work best with insights driven by those we serve, to reshape the way the world helps those in need. With this we want to make empowerment and lasting change the norm.
Strategy100 will tackle five challenges
Challenge 1
The number of people in need grows each year, but the global response has failed to keep pace.
Solution
Expand our scale
In order to reach more people in need, not just through our direct programming, but also by leveraging our resources and technical expertise to empower and strengthen local support systems, we will:
- Identify which interventions have the most impact at the lowest cost
- Target specific chronic-but-resolvable conditions like childhood malnutrition
- Improve the speed and access of our emergency response through regional teams integrated with community groups
- Engage local partners, including community networks and local civil society, to support local service delivery
- Invest in our technical capacities specifically designed to better support, and sustain, local service delivery
Challenge 2
Aid programs put “band-aids” on problems, and too often take a “one-size-fits-all” approach to programming.
Solution
Empower people living in crisis
In order to increase our impact and enable long-term change in people’s lives, we will:
- Solicit input from the people we serve and local partners to ensure IRC programs are human-centered and contextually appropriate
- Design programs to ensure they are easily adapted to changing circumstances and need
- Emphasize the importance of using best-available research, evidence and data in our research and innovation
Challenge 3
Better aid alone cannot improve lives unless it is accompanied by policy change.
Solution
Use our influence
- In order to amplify the voices of the people we serve, we will:
- Defend the rights of displaced communities and demand that all nations honor their humanitarian commitments to asylum seekers and refugees
- Accelerate innovation in humanitarian and development practice by establishing four centers for innovation around the world and highlighting innovative local solutions
- Drive global and regional campaigns for change on select policy issues of key importance to the people we serve
Challenge 4
Current recruitment, training and support practices in the humanitarian sector lead to high turnover of front-line staff and give preference to expertise from abroad instead of elevating expertise and solutions from people in the countries where we work. This leads to inequalities of power not just in our sector, but in our organization.
Solution
Invest in our people
In order to attract and retain a diverse and inclusive workforce that represents the communities we serve, we will:
- Examine how we can address rather than reflect the pervasive and, in some cases, deepening inequalities that exist around the world, especially those of race and gender
- Prioritize building diverse, inclusive and locally recruited leadership
- Refine staff skills through professional development and management training
- Ensure a positive, equitable and inclusive work environment that supports all our employees regardless of gender, race, religion, sexual orientation or national origin
Challenge 5
The aid sector is driven by small, short-term grants that make long-term impacts harder to achieve.
Solution
Stabilize our funding
In order to better respond to the needs of the people we serve and make stronger investments in their futures, we will:
- Advocate for and pursue larger, longer-term funding opportunities that enable consistent, high-quality programming
- Partner with private-sector organizations and individuals around the world committed to humanitarian action and development
- Provide additional, more flexible funding for strategic initiatives directly to program teams
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The International Rescue Committee's code of conduct (the IRC Way) helps staff around the world keep our programs firmly directed toward the wellbeing of our clients, while meeting the expectations of our donors as responsible stewards of their resources.
The IRC Way is available in 19 languages: Arabic, Amharic, Burmese, Dari, English, French, German, Greek, Kurdish (Sorani), Malay, Pashto, Polish, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian and Urdu. Download a copy.
What is the IRC Way?
The IRC Way describes the four core values of Integrity, Service, Accountability and Equality, and the undertakings that flow from them:
Integrity
We are open, honest and trustworthy in dealing with clients, partners, co-workers, donors, funders and the communities we affect.
Accountability
We are accountable—individually and collectively—for our behaviors, actions and results.
Service
We are responsible to the people we serve and the donors who enable our service.
Equality
We strive for equal outcomes for all clients and colleagues by promoting equitable access to opportunities and services.
The aim of our code of conduct is to ensure that we carry out our work following the ethical and moral principles that support our humanitarian calling. Upholding this code is a responsibility shared by all involved in delivering on the IRC’s mission. It applies to all IRC directors, officers, employees, interns, volunteers, incentive staff and partners who work on behalf of the IRC.
