Margaret E. Mahoney

Margaret E. Mahoney served as president of The Commonwealth Fund from 1980 to 1995. She was the first woman to head a major U.S. philanthropic foundation, becoming president of The Commonwealth Fund in 1980. Prior to her leadership of The Commonwealth Fund, she was a senior executive of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and, prior to that, of the Carnegie Corporation. She played a key role in the transition of RWJF from a family foundation to one of the largest U.S. foundations in the 1970s, and revitalized the Fund, which was founded in 1918 and today has assets of $680 million. Mahoney passed away in December 2011.