Biography

Karen Rosa is Vice President and Executive Director of the Altman Foundation, a private, independent foundation focusing on the five boroughs of New York City. Created in 1913 under the will of Benjamin Altman, founder of the B. Altman & Co. department stores, the foundation now has approximately $245 million in its endowment and awards grants in four main program areas: education, health, strengthening communities, and arts and culture, and in an over-arching area focusing on strengthening nonprofits. Altman grants primarily support programs and organizations addressing issues of access and opportunity for underserved New Yorkers; the Foundation (www.altmanfoundation.org) focuses on a results-based approach to its work. Before joining the Altman Foundation in 1986, Ms. Rosa served for a year as a consultant to The Rockefeller Foundation’s Trustee Task Force on Developing Countries, an initiative aimed at identifying opportunities for Rockefeller in its science-based and international relations programs. Prior to her Rockefeller assignment, she worked for eleven years for Dominique de Menil, a remarkable art collector and philanthropist in Houston, New York and Paris. With an art history degree from Barnard College, Ms. Rosa started out in the museum end of Mrs. de Menil’s activities in 1974, running a docent program, supervising student assistants, and handling public relations for the Rice Museum and the Institute for the Arts at Rice University. Over time, she moved to assisting Mrs. de Menil with her international work on issues of human rights, ecumenism, and social justice, working closely with Mrs. de Menil on the Rothko Chapel Awards for Truth and Freedom and other programs at the Chapel from 1981 to 1985. An active participant in philanthropic affinity groups and cross-sector initiatives, Ms. Rosa is a former board chair of Philanthropy New York (then known as the New York Regional