Rachel Garbow Monroe (she/her) leads The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, a $3.1 billion private charitable foundation dedicated to meeting the basic needs of people experiencing poverty. Monroe joined the Weinberg Foundation in 2005 as its first-ever chief operating officer and was promoted to president and CEO in 2010. The Foundation provides approximately $150 million in grants each year across the United States and Israel.
During her tenure, Monroe has grown the Foundation’s staff to more than 70 professionals in Baltimore and Honolulu; built its first internal investment team and investment advisory committee; and successfully rebranded the Foundation. She chairs the organization’s program (grants) committee, monitors all legal matters with outside counsel, and manages board governance and succession efforts. Monroe also has launched diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across the Foundation, solidifying its commitment to promoting equity internally and in its grantmaking. She travels to Israel frequently to advance the Foundation’s work there and is passionate about leading an annual mission to Israel for influential leaders from communities throughout the United States for the past 17 years.
Monroe serves on the board of Baltimore Gas and Electric — a subsidiary of Exelon, the nation’s leading utility company, with more than 10 million customers — as well as the boards of the Greater Baltimore Committee, Laurel Strategies, and the Kolker-Saxon-Hallock Family Foundation. In addition, she sits on Governor Wes Moore’s Maryland Council on Innovation and Impact and cochairs Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott’s newly formed Business Roundtable. In 2022, she was selected to join the steering committee of Governor Moore’s transition team. She also was founding cochair for Viewpoints at the Center Club, a program designed for professional women. Prior board roles include Leading Edge, Baltimore’s Promise, the Center Club of Baltimore, and Ronald McDonald House of Maryland.
In 2023, Monroe was inducted into the Maryland Daily Record’s Circle of Influence, a result of being honored as a three-time recipient of The Daily Record’s Influential Marylanders award (2023, 2021, and 2019). Other accolades include The Daily Record’s Power 100 (2024, 2023, and 2021); the City & State New York Philanthropy Power 50 list (2020); Baltimore Business Journal’s Power 10 CEOs (2019); JPRO Network’s Mandelkorn Distinguished Service Award (2017); and SmartCEO Magazine’s CEO of the Year (2016).
Before joining the Weinberg Foundation, Monroe was chief operating officer for The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore; the worldwide director of marketing for the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; and marketing manager for the Jewish Community Centers of Chicago. She also served as an adjunct faculty member at Johns Hopkins University, where she taught a graduate nonprofit marketing course at the Institute for Policy Studies. She earned a Bachelor of Arts from Northwestern University and a Master of Management from its J.L. Kellogg School of Management.
