Sterling K Speirn

Sterling became President of the Stupski Foundation headquartered in San Francisco, California in September, 2014. From 2006 through 2013, Sterling served as President and CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan, established in 1930 by breakfast cereal pioneer Will Keith Kellogg. While at the Kellogg Foundation, Sterling led the organization through a comprehensive review of its mission, vision, and program priorities. The foundation’s strategic framework seeks to integrate three core program areas, Education and Learning, Food, Health and Wellbeing, and Family Economic Security while emphasizing the promotion of Racial Equity and Civic and Community Engagement as core approaches to its mission to work with communities to create the conditions of success for vulnerable children. As a result the foundation placed a special emphasis on dual generation strategies that promote whole family and whole child development from birth to age eight. It seeks to increase the number of children who are born healthy, who enter Kindergarten ready to learn, who are successful and proficient by the end of third grade, and as a result are on their way to high school graduation and career and college access. In addition, the foundation identified priority places to concentrate an increasing portion of its annual grantmaking: Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, and New Orleans in the United States, and in Mexico and Haiti for its Latin America and Caribbean programming. Sterling recently served as a member of the Executive Policy Council of the First Five Years Fund, and served on the board of directors of the Council of Michigan Foundations (CMF). At CMF, he co-chaired the Transforming Michigan Philanthropy project. He also served as co-chairman of the national D5 coalition on Diversity in Philanthropy project. Sterling was also a member of the Council on Foundations Committee on Diversity and Inclusion. Before joining the Kellogg Foundation, Sterling was president of Peninsula Community Foundation, headquartered in Silicon Valley, where he led its asset growth from $60 million to $600 million. He also established the Center for Venture Philanthropy, and created the Raising A Reader Take Home Book Program that today operates in 33 states and serves more than 100,000 children. During that time, Sterling taught a seminar on philanthropy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Before that, he managed the national computer grants program for nonprofit organizations at Apple Computer. Sterling began his career as a 7th and 8th grade English Teacher in Cleveland, Ohio. He also has worked for the U.S. Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C.; practiced law in North Carolina; and managed a large community health center in Arcata, California. Sterling earned his bachelor’s degree in political science from Stanford University and holds a law degree from the University of Michigan. He is married to Diana Aviv, president and CEO of the national nonprofit, Independent Sector, and has two sons.