The Convening provides Jewish philanthropists and social entrepreneurs and leaders with an annual opportunity to network, learn, and celebrate our work together. After receiving overwhelming and wonderful responses, you told us you wanted to hear more. So we present to you The Convening Revisited, a special event to give you the exclusive chance to hear from amazing feminist philanthropists Paula Pretlow, Sally Gottesman and Alisa Doctoroff. Join us and hear these leaders share their thoughts on philanthropic giving in a constantly changing global economy and show us what true feminist leadership looks like. Watch both sessions below: Part One from the 2020 Convening and Part Two from the launch of our series on March 23rd, 2021.
Paula Pretlow: a former Senior Vice President of The Capital Group, a $1.4 trillion dollar privately-held investment management firm. While there, she headed up the firm’s public fund business development and client relationship group and was also responsible for large client relationships.
Prior to joining Capital in 1999, Paula worked with Barclays Global Investors (now BlackRock) and Montgomery Asset Management. Her investment industry experience also includes fixed-income sales with Credit Suisse and time as a portfolio engineer with AXA/Rosenberg, a quantitative investment management firm. She began her career as a corporate banking officer at Wells Fargo Bank.
Paula is passionately and actively involved on several boards including: The Kresge Foundation, the San Francisco Symphony and her synagogue, Congregation Emanu-El. Most recently, she was elected to the board of Northwestern University, her alma mater, where she is also on the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences Board of Visitors and was the convocation keynote speaker to the Weinberg College Class of 2016. Paula is a recipient of the Aiming High Award from Legal Momentum, the nation’s oldest legal advocacy organization dedicated to advancing the rights of women and girls. She will be recognized this year in her hometown, where she will receive the Foundation for Oklahoma City Public Schools Wall of Fame Humanitarian Award.
Ms. Pretlow received her BA in Political Science and MBA, both from Northwestern University. She is the proud mother of two young adults, Neil and Alison, and mother-in-law of Tanya. She loves travel to developing countries, music, theatre, urban hiking, and the list goes on.
Sally Gottesman: She has been involved in the not-for-profit sector for over 30 years as both a professional and lay leader. As a lay-leader, Sally is the Chair of Encounter, an educational organization working toward informed, courageous and resilient American & Israeli Jewish communal leadership on the Israeli Palestinian conflict. She is also deeply committed to research in Neurofibromatosis (NF-1) and helped to establish and is actively involved with Neurofibromatosis Therapeutic Acceleration Program (N-TAP) at Johns Hopkins as well as serving as a co-chair of the Development Committee of The Children’s Tumor Foundation. Prior to these endeavors, Sally co-founded and served as the Founding Chair of Moving Traditions, which emboldens Jewish youth to challenge sexism and develop their own Jewish identities through Moving Traditions’ teen groups, Rosh Hodesh for girls, Shevet for boys, and Tzelem for nonbinary and trans teens, and its Kol Koleinu Feminist Fellowship, focused on social justice activism. Her past Board service also includes: The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC), Kolot at RRC where she was instrumental in the creation of ritualwell.org, Congregation B’nai Jeshurun (NYC), The Jewish Funders Network, American Jewish World Service, Americans for Peace Now, and The Jewish Women’s Archive.
Professionally, Sally had a 15-year career as a consultant to not-for-profit organizations, working both at KPMG Peat Marwick and The Eleemosynary Group. She also served as the first NY/Tri-State Regional Director of the New Israel Fund and the first employee of the Israel Women’s Network in Jerusalem. Sally is a Board member of her family-owned-business, Edison Properties, LLC which owns and operates Manhattan Mini Storage and Edison/Park Fast Parking, primarily in Manhattan and Newark, NJ. Sally’s articles on philanthropy, Judaism, Israel, feminism, and class have been published in a variety of books and newspapers. A graduate of Wellesley College, Sally double majored in Economics and Religion. She received her MBA from The Yale School of Management. She lives in NYC with her three children, Alice (13), Ezra (12) and Charlotte (9).
Alisa Robbins Doctoroff: Alisa is a past president of UJA-Federation of New York. She also previously served as Chair of the Board, as well as Chair of the Commission on Jewish Identity and Renewal after years of involvement with its work, particularly in Israel and with young people. Alisa is a past president of the Abraham Joshua Heschel School and was instrumental in founding its high school division in 2001. She is active on the boards of a wide spectrum of organizations that promote engagement with Jewish life and identity through education, culture and religious life, including Moving Traditions, Mechon Hadar, and the Jewish Theological Seminary, where she is a Vice Chair. She is also past president of Congregation Or Zarua and former board member of the Jewish Funders Network. Alisa graduated from Harvard College and received an M.B.A at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. She also holds an M.A. in Jewish Studies from the Jewish Theological Seminary. She lives in New York City with her husband, Dan. They are the proud parents of Jacob, Ariel, and Jenna.