President and CEO, GuideStar
Jacob Harold is the president & CEO of GuideStar, the world’s largest source of information about nonprofits. Each year, more than 7 million users seek answers from GuideStar’s 2.5 billion pieces of data. He was named to the Nonprofit Times Power and Influence Top 50 in 2014 and 2015 and is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Harold came to GuideStar from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, where he led grantmaking for the Philanthropy Program. Before that, he worked as a consultant to nonprofits and foundations at the Bridgespan Group and as a climate change campaigner and strategist with the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Rainforest Action Network, and Greenpeace USA.
Harold has written extensively on climate change and philanthropic strategy. He earned an A.B. summa cum laude from Duke University and an MBA from Stanford. He has further training from Green Corps, Bain, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and SIT.