Emmett D. Carson, Ph.D.
CEO and President

An internationally recognized philanthropic leader for more than two decades, Emmett is the founding CEO and president of Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

Hired in 2006 to establish a new, regional community foundation from the unprecedented merger of Peninsula Community Foundation and Community Foundation Silicon Valley, Emmett is responsible for providing the vision for one of the largest community foundations in the United States with assets of $1.7 billion.

Before coming to Silicon Valley, Emmett served as president and CEO of The Minneapolis Foundation for 12 years. During his tenure, the foundation received national recognition for its grantmaking in the areas of housing, immigration and education.

An inspiring public speaker, Emmett has devoted his career to being a catalyst for positive social change and has authored more than 100 works on philanthropy and social justice. He served as the first manager of the Ford Foundation’s worldwide grantmaking program on philanthropy and the nonprofit sector and his seminal work on African American giving and volunteering at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies is widely seen as helping to spark broad public interest in ethnic philanthropy studies.

In addition to serving on numerous nonprofit boards, he has conducted workshops on endowment building for nongovernmental organizations in southern Africa and participated in international efforts to develop best practices within the field of philanthropy. He has received numerous awards, including honorary degrees from Indiana University, Morehouse College and The National Hispanic University.

A native of Chicago, Emmett received both his master’s and Ph.D. degrees in public and international affairs from Princeton University and his bachelor’s degree in economics, Phi Beta Kappa, from Morehouse College. He is married to Jacqueline Copeland-Carson, Ph.D.