Peter deCourcy Hero,
Vice President for Development and Institute Relations
On May 1, 2009, Peter deCourcy Hero joined Caltech as its new vice president for development and institute relations. He oversees programs in communications, principal and major gifts, foundation and corporate relations, gift and estate planning, and annual giving, including the Alumni Fund and the Caltech Associates. Alumni Association programs report to him.
Hero was senior advisor to the CEO and board of directors of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF) before coming to Caltech. From 1989 through 2006, he was president and CEO of the Community Foundation Silicon Valley (CFSV) and enabled its merger with the Peninsula Community Foundation to create the SVCF. Under his leadership, CFSV’s assets rose from $8 million to over $1.1 billion, and it recruited such donors as eBay founder Jeff Skoll and Infoseek founder Steve Kirsch. Fortune magazine recognized Hero’s skill at persuading ‘tech moguls’ to become philanthropists, commenting, “It is Peter Hero, more than anyone else, who has shown Silicon Valley how to give.” Between 1996 and 2006, CFSV awarded 40,000 charitable grants totaling more than $500 million, simultaneously raising $1.3 billion.
Hero is a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Center for Social Innovation and an adjunct professor at the Swinburne University of Technology. He was president of Maine College of Art before his tenure with CFSV.
He has served on several nonprofit boards, including those of the Public Broadcasting Service Foundation, the eBay Corporate Foundation, and the Haas Center for Public Service.
Hero holds an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and a BA, and an MA in art history, from Williams College.