This week, the Center for High Impact Philanthropy is pleased to announce that Richard “Dick” Henriques will be joining our team as a Senior Fellow. Dick will hold a joint appointment at the Wharton Social Impact Initiative, and comes to us from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he worked as a chief financial officer for four years. Dick is also a two-time Penn alumnus, having earned his B.A. from the College in 1978 and his M.B.A. from the Wharton School in 1981.
Dick will work alongside our team to develop practical guidance on vehicles for achieving philanthropic goals, with an initial focus on how foundations and other funders can use program-related investments, or PRIs, to do the most good. As with all of our work, we’ll leverage the best available information from our 3 circles of evidence: research, informed opinion, and field knowledge.
“This is a new, exciting opportunity to fulfill our mission to provide independent, informed, practical knowledge to those seeking to move more money to do more good,” says Kat Rosqueta, our founding executive director.
During his tenure at the Gates Foundation, Dick grew the organization’s PRI portfolio from $50 million to $700 million, overseeing strategic and financial planning, measurement and evaluation, as well as performance management.
“I am excited to take what we learned at the Gates Foundation,” Henriques says, “to help make program-related investments more accessible as a universal philanthropic investment alternative, not just the province of billion dollar balance sheets. I couldn’t think of better partners than the Center’s exceptional team and their colleagues at Wharton Social Impact.”
Welcome to the team, Dick!