News

The Heckscher Foundation welcomes Susanna Suh as a Heckscher Leadership Fellow as of January 1, 2025. Designed after similar programs in the private equity world where successful entrepreneurs are invited to spend a year developing new for-profit ventures, the Heckscher Leadership Fellows Program provides those in senior leadership positions with an opportunity to develop new non-profit venture projects and approaches that help level the playing field for underserved youth.

Past Heckscher Leadership Fellows have included Ruth Genn, John Mogulescu, Vita Rabinowitz, Jill Kafka, and AiLun Ku, each of whom continues to advise the foundation on strategic education initiatives.

The Heckscher Leadership Fellows Program extends the reach and impact of the foundation’s venture philanthropy approach to grantmaking. This approach focuses on three high-leverage funding strategies: catalytic giving, strategic partnerships with other funders in the public and private sectors, and targeted problem solving. While seeking out “inflection point funding,” Heckscher focuses on specific obstacles that keep underserved youth from realizing their full potential and the key junctures where the foundation’s grantmaking might change the course of their lives.

Fellows work independently on projects of their choosing and periodically advise the foundation on grantmaking opportunities. An annual stipend is provided as well as access to the foundation’s office space and services, which Fellows may use at their discretion.

Meet our Leadership Fellow:

Susanna Suh

Susanna recently retired as a Partner of the New York law firm of Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP, where she practiced corporate law for 30 years representing companies and financial institutions. She has been recognized as a leading lawyer in the areas of banking and finance. Susanna received her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Journal of International Law, and B.A. in Government from Cornell University. Susanna immigrated to the United States as a child with her parents and four brothers and grew up in Sunnyside, Queens. She is excited and grateful to join the Heckscher Foundation as a Leadership Fellow to explore pathways to help young people in America.