Posted on December 25, 2011

People in the News (12/25/11): Appointments and Promotions

The Chicago-based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has announced the planned departure of DANIEL SOCOLOW, director of the MacArthur Fellows program (a/k/a the "genius grants"), effective July 1, 2012. Socolow has led the program for fifteen of its thirty years. The foundation has hired a search firm to identify candidates for the position.

The Duke Endowment in Charlotte, North Carolina, has announced the appointment of MATT SHARP as information technology director. Sharp joined the endowment after serving as executive director of SITIA, a nonprofit that supports sustainable agriculture and natural resource conservation through the development of information technologies. Prior to that, he served for eighteen years as lead technologist at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

The trustees of the New York City-based Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust have announced the appointment of JOHN R. ETTINGER as CEO, effective January 3, 2012. Ettinger was formerly managing partner at the law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell, where he had worked since 1979.

In other news, the D.C.-based Urban Institute has announced the appointment of SARAH ROSEN WARTELL as president. Wartell, a public policy executive and housing markets expert who co-founded the Center for American Progress and currently serves as its executive vice president, previously served as President Bill Clinton's deputy assistant for economic policy and the deputy director of his National Economic Council. Earlier, she practiced law at the firm of Arnold & Porter, was a visiting scholar and adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center, and was a consultant to the bipartisan Millennial Housing Commission.