Sally Osberg will step down as president and CEO of the Skoll Foundation after 16 years, only hold those posts in the foundation’s history. She will remain in the role until a new president is in place.
“For me, this is the right move at the right time for all the right reasons,” Osberg said in a announcement of departure. “I will miss more than I can say about the Skoll Foundation. I couldn’t be more confident about its future; indeed, the foundation truly is poised to deliver even greater value in the years ahead,” she said.
Osberg will begin a new role as senior advisor to Jeff Skoll and the Jeff Skoll Group of organizations once a permanent successor is found. The search for her replacement is being run by Sally Sterling of Spencer Stuart.
The Palo Alto, Calif.-based foundation is one of the leadership philanthropic organizations in social entrepreneurship. In 2004, the foundation established a partnership with the Said Business School of Oxford University and produced the first Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship.
The Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship portfolio has grown to 100 ventures, ranging from deforestation in the Amazon to improving health outcomes in some of the poorest countries.
Osberg has twice been included in The NonProfit Times Power & Influence Top 50, in 2015 and 2016. She is a founding board member of the Social Progress Imperative and Index.
“Driven by an unwavering conviction that a sustainable world of peace and shared prosperity is within grasp, Jeff Skoll has approached his philanthropy as the quintessential entrepreneur,” Osberg said. “He’s created an utterly remarkable set of organizations, each of which brings a distinctive strategy to bear on solving the world’s most pressing problems,” she said.
“Sally has been a major pillar of my work to better the world for 16 years,” said Jeff Skoll, founder and chairman of the Skoll Foundation. “I was admittedly new to philanthropy after leaving eBay. Having Sally by my side, with wisdom that transcended our work together, has been a joy and a privilege,” he said.
The first full-time employee and first president of eBay, Skoll created the Skoll Foundation in 1999. He also is founder and chairman of Participant Media, and the Capricorn Investment Group.
The Skoll Foundation advances its mission of social entrepreneurship through two separate entities, the Skoll Foundation, a private foundation launched in 2002, and the Skoll Fund, a supporting organization associated with the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, created in 1999. The foundation also provides financial support to the Skoll Global Threats Fund, a separate private foundation.
The Skoll Foundation assets were valued at $583 million and the Skoll Fund assets at $151 million, for a combined $1.1 billion, as of Dec. 15, 2015, the most recent year available. That year, the Skoll Foundation and fund awarded a total of $87 million and disbursed $68 million in grant payments.
