Suzanne Siskel, Rick Leach Join Winrock International’s Board of Directors, Accept 5-Year Appointments

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (October 14, 2013) — Winrock International is pleased to announce the elections of Suzanne Siskel and Richard “Rick” Leach to its board of directors. Siskel and Leach both accepted five-year appointments.

Siskel, executive vice president and chief operating officer of The Asia Foundation, and Leach, president and chief executive officer of the World Food Program USA, both “bring invaluable substantive and executive leadership skills and experience to Winrock’s board,” said Board Chair Elizabeth Campbell. “We are pleased these exceptional leaders will offer their guidance and leadership to Winrock International and look forward to welcoming them to the board.”

Before joining The Asia Foundation, a nonprofit organization “committed to the development of a peaceful, prosperous, just, and open Asia-Pacific region,” Siskel worked in various leadership positions at the Ford Foundation. Most recently she was Ford Foundation’s director of Social Justice Philanthropy, overseeing efforts to mobilize philanthropic resources and to build strong local and regional foundations engaged in social development in the United States and throughout the world.

Trained as a social anthropologist, Siskel has served variously as a consultant, university teacher and researcher throughout Indonesia, in rural northeast Brazil, and highland Chiapas, Mexico. She first lived and worked in Indonesia as a member of the first cohort of Luce Scholars in 1974 and later returned there as a Fulbright scholar and development advisor. She recently completed a three-year tenure as president of the Fulbright Association, and also served on the Governing Council of the European Foundation Centre.

Leach serves as president and chief executive officer of World Food Program USA (WFP USA), a nonprofit organization that builds support in the United States to end global hunger by engaging individuals and organizations, shaping public policy and generating resources for WFP and other hunger relief operations. Leach established WFP USA (formerly Friends of the World Food Program) in 1997 and led the organization until 2004. He returned to lead the organization again in 2010.

From 2003-2005, Leach launched and directed a global campaign in collaboration with the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the World Health Organization and the American Cancer Society. The campaign sought to identify and build support for public policies to help protect children from tobacco use. From 2006-2008, Leach developed the plan for the World Health Organization to halt the production and trade in counterfeit drugs. In 1993, he was appointed by the Clinton Administration, to create and direct the federal government’s childhood immunization campaign at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to help address the low immunization coverage rates of children between birth and two years of age.

Winrock International is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Little Rock, Ark., that works with people in the United States and around the world to empower the disadvantaged, increase economic opportunity, and sustain natural resources.