Bradford K. Smith selected president of The Foundation Center.

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The Foundation Center in New York City has reached halfway around the world for its new president. Bradford K. Smith will succeed Sara L. Engelhardt, who is retiring after 17 years as president. Smith is currently president of the Oak Foundation in Geneva, Switzerland, a family foundation with programs and grant activities in 41 countries in North America, Europe, Africa, Latin America, and South Asia. His start date is October 1.

"Brad is a respected leader with an outstanding record of achievement in connecting people and organizations to critical resources that strengthen their capacity to serve the public good," said M. Christine DeVita, chairman of the Foundation Center's board of trustees and president of the Wallace Foundation." His deep knowledge of both philanthropy and the nonprofit sector and of the complex issues that drive the field today are powerful assets that will serve the Center well as the central knowledge hub for the field."

Prior to joining the Oak Foundation, Smith developed and led the Ford Foundation's Peace and Social Justice Program, the foundation's largest program area, providing hundreds of millions of dollars during his 10-year tenure as vice president to organizations working on issues of human rights, international cooperation, governance, and civil society in the U.S. and around the world.

"With unprecedented levels of private wealth being devoted to philanthropy and the nonprofit sector," Smith said," the public increasingly wants to know how these resources are being applied to the diverse challenges facing society ... Building a better world is imperative, and I am honored to take the reins of an organization that is contributing the ideas, information, and services needed by grantmakers and nonprofits striving to do just that."