Fay Twersky

Fay Twersky was Vice President of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. She worked closely with the foundation’s president, Larry Kramer, and managed special initiatives to improve the foundation’s grantmaking and discrete projects that fall outside our traditional programs. Fay also lead the foundation’s Effective Philanthropy Group. The team, which she shaped and launched in 2012, guides strategy, evaluation and organization learning within the Hewlett Foundation, and also leads grantmaking in support of organizational effectiveness and a strong philanthropic sector.

Fay spent 2010 to 2011 working in Jerusalem, advising Yad Hanadiv (The Rothschild Family Foundation) on issues of strategy and organization. She served for four years as director and member of the leadership team of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, designing and developing the impact planning & improvement division. She was also a founding principal of BTW – Informing Change, a strategic consulting firm.

Fay is a frequent author and commentator on trends in philanthropy. Her publications include a Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) article, “Time for a Three-Legged Measurement Stool,” about balancing monitoring and evaluation with feedback from ultimate beneficiaries; “The Artful Juggler,” on what it takes to be a successful foundation CEO; Listening to Those Who Matter Most, the Beneficiaries; and A Guide to Actionable Measurement. She serves on the boards of The Center for Effective Philanthropy and the Van Leer Group, an umbrella organization for three philanthropic and nonprofit entities. She is also the founding co-chair for the Fund for Shared Insight. Fay holds two bachelor’s degrees in Middle Eastern Studies and Rhetoric, with high honors, from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master’s degree in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Fay and her wife Jill have two great kids, Jaz and David Nathan, and they frequently enjoy far-reaching family conversations over delicious home-cooked dinners.