Darren Walker  Darren Walker (born August 28, 1959) is a nonprofit executive who serves as president of the Ford Foundation. Walker is a fellow of the Institute for Urban Design, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a board member of the Arcus Foundation, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Friends of the High Line, and the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies. Earlier in his career, Walker worked as a lawyer and investment banker. He has been a teacher of housing, law and urban development at the New York University School of Law and the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. He is co-chair of the New York Public Library Council. He is board of directors vice-chairman at the New York City Ballet. In 2018, Walker joined the board of directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Walker was born in a charity hospital in Lafayette, Louisiana. Walker was raised by a single mother in Ames and later Baytown, Texas, and was one of the country's first children to benefit from the Head Start Program. Walker said that his background "has given me an understanding of the need for investment in human capital and the centrality of private philanthropy making a difference in human lives." With financial support from a Pell Grant, Walker was admitted into the University of Texas at Austin. In 1982, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in government and a Bachelor of Science in speech communication. In 1986, Walker graduated from the University of Texas School of Law with a Juris Doctor. Walker began his career in 1986 at the international law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton. In 1988, he joined Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) and spent seven years in its capital markets division. In 1995, Walker left the corporate world to spend a year volunteering at a school in Harlem. He went on to become the chief operating officer at Abyssinian Development Corporation, a community development organization also located in Harlem. There, he was able to draw on his private sector experience to advance revitalization in Harlem, including the opening of a Pathmark supermarket in 1999 at 125th Street and Lexington Avenue. He also led the development of the first public school built in New York City by a community organization. From 2002-2010, Walker was vice president for foundation initiatives at the Rockefeller Foundation, where he oversaw a wide range of programs in the United States and internationally. Also, at the Rockefeller Foundation, he led a recovery program in the southern United States in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. He joined the Ford Foundation in 2010 as vice president for Education, Creativity and Free Expression, one of the foundation's three major program areas.