Elizabeth Peters

Liz Peters is Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. She is responsible for managing the foundation’s operations and oversees the grantmaking analytics and operations, human resources, IT, facilities, finance, and legal teams. She also is an officer of the board and assists with special projects for the president and board.

Previously, she served as Interim President of the foundation for nine months and before that, as the foundation’s General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for over a decade. During that time, she worked across the foundation’s programs to implement strategic initiatives and funder collaboratives, built the foundation’s legal department and codified its compliance practices, and developed an institution-wide approach to risk management. She worked closely with the board on corporate governance, including leading efforts to update the foundation’s bylaws, develop committee charters, and assist the board in developing their guiding principles. In addition, she was the co-chair of a foundation-wide initiative that led to more equitable internal operations and practices and worked to create fellowships for diverse law students to enter the practice of nonprofit law. She currently serves on the foundation’s Racial Justice Advisory Council.

Prior to coming to the foundation, Liz worked at Caplin & Drysdale in Washington D.C., where her legal practice focused on representing non-profit institutions. Her previous experience included strategic planning at a fortune 500 company and as a financial analyst at an investment bank.

Liz is a frequent speaker on nonprofit legal topics impacting private foundations. She is also a co-author of several online legal courses on private foundation law available at learnfoundationlaw.org. She graduated phi beta kappa from Harvard University and earned her law degree from Yale Law School.