Staffing transitions in the Hewlett Foundation Cyber Initiative

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation announced today that Cyber Initiative Director Eli Sugarman will join the Oversight Board, and Kelly Born will rejoin the foundation as Director on February 1. Hewlett Foundation President Larry Kramer shared the following about the staffing transitions:

After six years leading our grantmaking in this area, Eli Sugarman is departing to take a leadership position on the staff of the Oversight Board, a new independent organization set up by Facebook to adjudicate controversies and craft rules to regulate content on its platforms. It’s an exciting opportunity for Eli to assume a key role on one of the critical challenges of our time—one that, as many of you know, has been a focus of Hewlett’s U.S. Democracy Program and of many of our Cyber grantees.

Beginning February 1, Kelly Born will rejoin the Hewlett Foundation as Cyber Initiative Director. Kelly is a seasoned grantmaker, having previously served as a program officer in our U.S. Democracy Program, where she directed our digital disinformation strategy. In that role, she worked closely with Eli and the Cyber Initiative team (including on a series of joint grants). She left the Hewlett Foundation a year ago to become Executive Director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center—one of the Cyber Initiative’s anchor grantees. Kelly is thus already familiar not only with the Hewlett Foundation and its processes, but also with the Cyber strategy and grantee community.

We are truly proud of what Eli accomplished during his time running the Cyber Initiative. I hope you will join me in thanking him for his successful work building robust institutions capable of bringing deep expertise to bear on the hardest cyber challenges facing our society.

We are excited about what Kelly will add as she picks up the baton for the Cyber Initiative’s last lap. I’m sure she will soon have more to say about where she intends to take this work over the Cyber Initiative’s final three years, but for now I hope you will join me in welcoming her back to the Hewlett Foundation.