Dr. Rajiv J. Shah

Dr. Shah serves as President of The Rockefeller Foundation, a global institution with a mission to promote the well-being of humanity around the world. The Foundation applies data, science, and innovation to ensure everyone has the opportunity to be hopeful, healthy, empowered, and prosperous. Today, he is leading big bets to end energy poverty for more than a billion people, ensure universal access to food that’s good for both people and planet, strengthen health systems against 21st-century threats, and ensure the American dream is the expectation — not the exception.

In 2009, Dr. Shah was appointed USAID Administrator by President Obama and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Dr. Shah reshaped the agency’s operations in more than 70 countries by elevating the role of innovation, creating high-impact public-private partnerships, and focusing U.S. investments to deliver stronger results. He led the U.S. response to the Haiti earthquake and the West African Ebola pandemic, served on the National Security Council, and elevated the role of development as part of a bipartisan foreign policy. He previously served at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he helped create the International Finance Facility for Immunization, unlocking the resources to vaccinate 1.2 billion children and save an estimated 20.6 million lives.

In October 2023, Dr. Shah published Big Bets: How Large-Scale Change Really Happens, which the Wall Street Journal said “admirably argues against cynicism,” JP Morgan added to its Next2024 list, and The Next Big Ideas Club recognized as a “Must-Read.”

Raised outside of Detroit, Michigan, Dr. Shah is a graduate of the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and the Wharton School of Business. He is married to Shivam Mallick Shah, and they have three children.