Senior Advisory Council (formerly the President's Council)

Rupert H. Johnson, Jr. is Vice Chairman, Member - Office of the Chairman and Director of Franklin Resources, Inc. He serves as an officer, director, and trustee of some of the subsidiaries of Franklin Resources, Inc. and of 47 of the investment companies in Franklin Templeton Investments. He is also Chairman and Director of Franklin Templeton funds. Mr. Johnson joined Franklin in 1965 after serving as an officer in the United States Marine Corps. Mr. Johnson is a graduate of Washington and Lee University. He is a member on the board of the BASIC Fund and has served as a member of the executive committee as well as the Board of Governors of The Investment Company Institute. He also served on the board of the San Francisco Zoological Society and has been active with the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. He is a former trustee of both Santa Clara University and Washington and Lee University.

George M. Marcus is the Co-Founder and Chairman of Marcus & Millichap Company (MMC). Founded in 1971, MMC is the parent company of a diversified group of real estate service, investment and development firms. His professional memberships include Real Estate Roundtable, Urban Land Institute, the U.C. Berkeley Fisher Center for Real Estate and numerous other professional and community organizations. Mr. Marcus graduated with a B.S. in Economics from San Francisco State University in 1965, he was honored as Alumnus of the Millennium in 1999 and received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from the California State University in 2011.

Chandler Tagliabue grew up in Milledgeville, GA, with two younger brothers. She was an outstanding student and received her BA in English and French from the Women’s College of Georgia (now Georgia College and State University) in 1964. In 1965, Chan married Paul Tagliabue, then fresh out of law school. She later earned a Master of Arts degree in English and American Literature at George Washington University, and has been for decades an avid participant in book clubs in Washington, New York City and Boothbay Harbor, ME. Chan’s current primary involvement is as a member of the Board of Regents of Georgetown University. She serves as Vice Chair of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics committee and is also a member of the Georgetown Learning Initiatives committee.

In the past, Chan devoted time and energy as a volunteer leader and board member of Rebuilding Together, the nation’s leading not-for-profit organization engaged in rehabilitating housing for elderly, disabled and other disadvantaged citizens. Chan has also been heavily involved in other organizations, including as a board member for Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington; honorary chair of a capital campaign for the Girl Scout Council of the National Capital; and as senior warden of the vestry and chair of a St Columba’s capital campaign.

Paul Tagliabue is currently Vice Chair of Georgetown University’s Board of Directors. He joined the Board in 2006 and served as Chair from 2009 to 2015. Tagliabue engages in a range of endeavors, including in business, law, and higher education. He previously served as the Commissioner of the National Football League (NFL) from 1989 until 2006. As NFL Commissioner, Tagliabue presided over an extended period of labor peace, league expansion and growth of fan interest and revenue in professional football. Tagliabue now serves as a member of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, and has previously advised the United States Olympic Committee on its governance structure.

Tagliabue is senior counsel in the law firm Covington & Burling in its Washington, D.C., office and advises clients on governance and public policy matters. Tagliabue's contributions in business and public service have been recognized by the Jackie Robinson Foundation, the NCAA, the Sports Business Journal, Autism Speaks, the United Way of America, the National Urban League and other organizations. Before becoming the NFL’s CEO, Tagliabue represented the NFL and other clients for two decades at Covington & Burling. He earlier served in the Office of U.S. Secretary of Defense as a policy analyst and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He currently serves on business boards, including Panasonic’s Global Advisory Group, as well as boards of nonprofit organizations.

Kat Taylor is active in a variety of social business, public benefit and philanthropic ventures in the San Francisco Bay Area. She currently focuses on beneficial banking services and food systems through two primary organizations. She and her husband, Tom Steyer, are the Founding Directors of OneCalifornia Bank and a foundation, which lends to low-income communities to support local economies and job creation. Kat is also a Founding Director of TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation dedicated to returning to sustainable food production. Kat is a Partner in INKA, a startup renewable food company pioneering closed loop food systems. Since 1986, Kat served on the board of the Good Samaritan Family Resource Center and the Insight Prison Project. Kat has also served as a member of the Board of Directors of KQED, Inc., the Bay Area and Northern California’s public radio and television station. Kat and Tom reside in San Francisco with their four children and many animals.

William E. Swing is the Founder and President Emeritus of the United Religions Initiative. Bishop Swing had the original vision of URI in 1993 in response to an invitation from the United Nations, which asked him to host an interfaith service honoring the 50th anniversary of the signing of the UN Charter. Bishop Swing, along with 50 others, shaped the URI purpose (to promote enduring, daily interfaith cooperation, to end religiously motivated violence and to create cultures of peace, justice, and healing for the Earth and all living beings). URI is currently the largest interfaith grassroot organization.

Bishop Swing Bishop Swing served as the 7th Episcopal Bishop of California from 1980 until his retirement in 2006. In that capacity, he was a national and international leader in response to the AIDS crisis, co-founded Episcopal Community Services to address San Francisco’s homeless problem, and co-founded Community Bank of the Bay to support local businesses and the economy.

He is married to Mary Taylor Swing and has two children and three grandchildren.

Books by Bishop Swing: A Bishop's Quest: Founding a United Religions and The Sacred and the Silly: A Bishop's Playful and Eventful Life. Both books are available on Amazon.com; the proceeds of book sales will benefit URI.

John Weiser previously served as Chairman of the Board of the Graduate Theological Union, a partnership of nine seminaries of differing denominations. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Mr. Weiser served as General Counsel of Bechtel Group, Inc., an international engineering construction firm. Earlier, he was a partner and member of the management committee of Shearman & Sterling, a major Wall Street law firm. He and his late wife, Maria, had nine children, one of whom died as a toddler; they have eleven grandchildren. 

After stints at Goldman, Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch over 41 years and being unable to retain a paid situation, he retired in 2015. Over this time he morphed from being a stockbroker into a discretionary investment manager of a team with about $3B in assets. For several years he was ranked (# 8) on Barron's list of the 100 Top Investment Brokers. Now he focuses his time on investment work with three foundations, including URI. He is also a trustee of the BSA National Foundation and president of the American Fondouk Animal Hospital Foundation in Fez, Morocco. He also lovingly and patiently devotes himself to the seemingly endless process of renovating a home in Woodside.

Mary Cranston is a seasoned corporate director and investor. She is the retired CEO and Chair Emeritus of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP. As CEO from 1999 to 2006, she expanded PWSP internationally, doubling its size and profitability. She currently serves as a director of Visa, the Chemours Company, MyoKardia, CSAA Insurance, McAfee, Boardspan, and Fiduciary Trust. She served as a Trustee of Stanford University from 2000 to 2010, and as the Chair of the Board of the Stanford Children’s Hospital until December 2016. She has also chaired the Stanford Alumni Association, the Stanford Law School Board of Visitors, and the Stanford Children’s Research Initiative. She currently sits on the boards of the Commonwealth Club of California (which she chaired from 2008 to 2010) and of Catalyst. She has been recognized by the National Law Journal as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in the United States, and by the National Association of Corporate Directors as one of the 50 most influential and effective public company directors in America. Mary has served as an advisor and investor to numerous startups in technology, financial technology and pharmaceuticals.  

William P. Fuller serves on the boards of a bank and a technology company in the Bay Area as well as a number of non-profits involved with Asia. From 2004 to 2008 Bill was the Vice Chair of ChinaVest, a merchant bank with offices in Shanghai and San Francisco. He served as CEO of The Asia Foundation in San Francisco from 1989 to 2004, and from 1981 to 1989 as Deputy Assistant Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in Washington, D.C. and as Director of the USAID mission in Indonesia. From 1971 to 1981, Mr. Fuller served with the Ford Foundation in Thailand, and later as head of the Foundation's office in Bangladesh. He began his career with UNICEF in the Middle East and with the World Bank in Paris. Mr. Fuller holds an MBA from Harvard and a Ph.D from Stanford.

Jill H. Kramer is a founding member of the URI Senior Advisory Council; a founding member of the Vital Voices Bay Area Council; an emerita Trustee of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, a past president of Achievement Rewards for College Scientists Foundation (ARCSNCC); founder of CLAW (Critter Lovers at Work); and she co-founded the Coro Foundation program for “Women Over 40”. She is a member of the Presidents’ Circle of the National Academy of Sciences. She recently joined How Women Lead.

Richard Livermore is an expert in dispute resolution. He is a retired Judge of the Superior Court of California, having served as a California Judicial officer from August, 1988, through December, 2016. His judicial service included pioneering work in the development of alternatives to incarceration for defendants in the grips of drug and alcohol dependency. Judge Livermore’s assignments included Criminal, Civil, Probate, Juvenile, Family and Collaborative Court calendars. He has taught at both the California Judges College and the National Judges College. Prior to his judicial service, he was a pioneer in the development of Mediation, Arbitration, and Alternative Dispute Resolution (“ADR”) practices throughout the United States at the Federal, State, and Local levels.

Robert (Bob) Lurie has a lifelong dedication to business, civic and community affairs in San Francisco. He served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force from 1951 to 1953 before returning home to enter the San Francisco business community. Upon his father’s passing in 1972, Bob Lurie assumed the presidency of the Lurie Company, a San Francisco and Chicago-based real estate company specializing in commercial properties. In 1976, a Lurie Company subsidiary purchased the San Francisco Giants Baseball Club.

Rabbi Stephen S. Pearce, DD, PhD, served Congregation Emanu-El as the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Senior Rabbi from 1993 to 2013. Ordained at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, he earned his doctorate in counselor psychology at St. John’s University. He is an advisory board member of the Taube Foundation for Jewish Life and Culture. Previously, he served on the boards of the Graduate Theological Union and Palo Alto University, and is a past president of the Northern California Board of Rabbis. In January 2018, he was named the Taube Scholar at Congregation Emanuel-El.

Elizabeth Power is a Bay Area native with a passion for both local and global issues. As a political consultant at Bearstar Strategies in San Francisco, Elizabeth provides communications and media strategy for political campaigns across California. Prior to joining Bearstar, Elizabeth interned for the U.S. Department of State, USAID, and several international nonprofits. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from George Washington University in 2020 with a B.A. in International Affairs and minors in Journalism/Mass Communications and Arabic Studies. Elizabeth spent her junior year abroad in Amsterdam, Netherlands and Amman, Jordan where she volunteered as an English teacher and a refugee services coordinator. Elizabeth worked as an intern in the URI  San Francisco office in 2016, and she is thrilled to return to URI on the Senior Advisory Council.

Pulin Sanghvi is a speaker, author, and educator on the topics of purpose and meaningful work based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Pulin led structural reimaginations of career development at Princeton University and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and he created and taught a model of hypothesis-driven exploration that has engaged thousands of members of the Princeton, Stanford, and Yale communities. Previously, Pulin was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company in Palo Alto and an investment banker with Morgan Stanley in New York. Pulin holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BA summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with Distinction in Economics from Yale University. Pulin serves on the boards of The Peace Studio and Hospital de la Familia Foundation, and previously served on the national board of Positive Coaching Alliance. He also serves Yale in multiple capacities, including as a Fellow at Davenport College, and previously as Executive Officer of the Yale Alumni Association Board of Governors.

Barbara Shannon is a business growth expert. She is CEO of the Shannon Group advising C-Level corporate executives with clients that include FEI/Thermo Fischer, Lumentum, HireRight, Flextronics, and others. She helps clients achieve game-changing results for themselves and their businesses. She is founder and chair of THECEOBOARD, a San Francisco-based CEO peer group, and ATHENA, a monthly mastermind group dedicated to the success of women entrepreneurs. Barbara hosts the Bernstein CEO Speaker Series, serves on the Wharton Center for Leadership and Change, and is a frequent speaker and panelist on big shift business transformation. Previously, she was with Deloitte Consulting, where she guided senior executives at JPMorgan Chase, MetLife, Lockheed Martin, Hewlett Packard and Applied Materials. Barbara gives back locally as a board member at We Vote, as a Global Ambassador for How Women Lead, and as the coach-in-residence at Save The Bay. She has also served as a member of the URI Foundation Board. Barbara received her BA from Smith College and her MBA at The Wharton School.

Ms. Siskel is the Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer of the Asia Foundation. She oversees the Asia Foundation’s 18 Asian offices and US operations. The Foundation is a 65-year old nonprofit committed to improving lives across Asia and supporting its continuing development as a peaceful, just and thriving region of the world. Previously she held leadership positions over two decades at the Ford Foundation in Indonesia, Philippines and New York. She serves on the boards of Winrock International, China Medical Board, Youth Orchestra of the Americas, Friends of Fondation de France, and Vicente Canyon Hillside Foundation. She is Co-President of Ford’s alumni association, former President of the Fulbright Association, and was a distinguished scholar at the Clinton School of Public Service in Arkansas. She holds degrees in anthropology from Harvard University and the Johns Hopkins University.

Roselyne "Cissie" Swig is Founder and President of ComCon International, and member of the Board of Directors of The Swig Company and founder of Roselyne C. Swig Artsource (1978-94). She was appointed Director of the U.S. Department of State Art in Embassies Program by President William J. Clinton (1994-97). She has devoted decades to philanthropic and community service efforts, at local, national and global levels with a focus on women's empowerment, social welfare, fine art, political advocacy and education. Ms. Swig is founder of Partners Ending Domestic Abuse and Bayview Alliance.