Chairman, Rhône Group
Rochester, NY native Robert Agostinelli, aged 69, attended the Aquinas Institute and served as an altar boy at Sacred Heart Cathedral with Bishop Fulton J Sheen. He earned his MBA at Columbia University. Joining Goldman Sachs in 1982, he left for Lazard’s in 1987. Agostinelli struck out on his own in 1995 with the founding of New York-based private equity shop Rhône Group. He is active in philanthropic activities, including being a former chairman of the National Review Institute who set up the William F Buckley prize for leadership in political thought and as a member of the Reagan Ranch board of governors. In a caustic and widely applauded 2021 article in the National Review, Agostinelli spoke out about the crisis of Catholic identity on American campuses today after a return visit to Aquinas where he found the school indoctrinated with woke values that represented a form of “papier-mâché Catholicism”. He lamented how far removed the school was from the Judeo-Christian values that had provided him with a “moral compass” for life.
Commercial real estate
A graduate of Boston College and Harvard University, Laure Aubuchon works in commercial real estate. She serves on the board of Catholic Charities of Fairfield County where she is on the executive committee, and in 2016, was the co-chair of the Capital Campaign for the New Covenant House in Stamford, CT, a programme of Catholic Charities, where she is also on the advisory board. She was a trustee of Assumption College for 21 years. She is on the board of the WE Aubuchon Co, Inc, a family-owned business started by her grandfather in 1908. For eight years, Aubuchon served as a Eucharist minister at Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital.
John and Daria Barry Foundation
John Barry is the chairman and chief executive officer of Prospect Capital Corporation and Prospect Capital Management (PCM). He is chairman of PCM’s Investment Committee and has been an officer of PCM since 1990. Daria Barry is head of administration and managing director at Prospect Capital Management. She joined PCM in 1998 and oversees PCM’s operations. They are philanthropists who run the John and Daria Barry Foundation which is committed to improving opportunities, with a focus on veterans, education and the environment.
CEO, Delta Air Lines
Edward Bastian, 65, has been CEO of Delta Air Lines since 2016. He received a bachelor of business administration in accounting from St Bonaventure University in New York. He recently met with Pope Francis at the Vatican, presenting the pontiff with a Roman cross, cut from a Delta engine blade, and a generous six-digit financial gift to a papal charity.
Wine distributor
Patrick Baugier de Chevestre is chairman and founder of Metrowine Distribution, one of the largest Bordeaux wine distributors in the US. He has a deep background in wine having grown up in Bordeaux, where his family has been active in the wine business for four centuries. He is a member of the Chevaliers du Tastevin, Commandeur of La Commanderie du Bontemps, and also belongs to the Jurade de Saint Emilion and L’Union Club Bordelais. Patrick holds a degree in law from the University of Assas in Paris.
Philanthropist
Kim Bepler is the widow of Stephen E Bepler, and since his death in 2016 she has run the extensive Bepler family estate. Three new chairs were created at Fordham University thanks to a $10.5 million legacy from her husband, and Bepler is now an honorary trustee fellow there. $2.5 million will be added to the gift to a fund for a new science building planned for the Rose Hill campus, a project to which the Beplers have contributed $7.8 million. Bepler has also started a fund for Fordham students affected by the crisis in Ukraine.
President and CEO, Fiserv
Frank J Bisignano, 63, is president and CEO of Fiserv. He has previously served as the CEO of First Data Corporation and the COO of JPMorgan Chase.In 2021, he was awarded with the Deus Caritas Est award by Cardinal Dolan for his work in assisting the poor via Catholic charities and other archdiocesan projects in New York. Among his non-profit commitments, Bisignano serves as a trustee of the Cathedral of St Patrick.
Former VP, Johnson & Johnson
Robert E Campbell is a retired vice-chairman of the board of directors of Johnson & Johnson. He served as an Air Force officer for three years and during his J&J career held numerous positions in financial and general management. Campbell is trustee emeritus and past chairman of the board of trustees of Fordham University. After retiring in 1995, Campbell served as chairman of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, whose mission is to improve the health and healthcare of every American, and the Cancer Institute of New Jersey.
Entrepreneur and philanthropist
Joseph A Cari Jr, from New York, is a banker, public policy expert, and philanthropist. Beyond this, his professional career has also included experience in the worlds of media, politics, law and education.
Cari was appointed by President Bill Clinton as chairman of the board of the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, a US government think-tank. He has also established the Rita Bahr Cari Memorial Fund, named after his wife, at the University of Notre Dame. This aims to help in aiding those who suffer from human-rights violations.
Former chairman and director, PVH Corp
Emanuel Chirico is chairman of PVH Corp. It owns an iconic family of brands including Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and Van Heusen. Chirico has been with PVH for over 26 years, serving as CEO from 2006 to 2021 and as chairman since 2007.
Under his leadership PVH has become one of the largest and most admired fashion and lifestyle companies in the world, reaching $9.9 billion in annual revenues in 2019 and 40,000 associates operating in over 40 countries. His philanthropic work includes serving on the board of trustees of his alma mater, Fordham University, as well as the board for Save the Children and the Healthcare Chaplaincy.
CEO, Demeter & Co
Jim Clerkin has over 35 years of experience in the wine and spirits industry. He began his career in Ireland where he rose through the ranks at Guinness to become an executive member of the board of directors. In 2010, Clerkin was appointed to the position of CEO and president of Moët Hennessy USA, the leading luxury wines, spirits and champagne company in the world. Outside of work, he is the chairman of Co-Operation Ireland in the US, which is a not-for-profit organisation promoting peace and reconciliation.
Founder, PivotNorth Capital and philanthropists
Timothy Connors is the founder of PivotNorth Capital and a 25-year veteran of Silicon Valley, having co-founded five companies. He has built an extensive career in engineering and technology and as a venture capitalist. The focus of Wendy and Tim Connors’s philanthropy is directed towards Catholic causes such as the University of Notre Dame, Catholic Charities San Francisco, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, Saint Raymond Parish, and Sacred Heart Prep High School. They have also co-founded and funded OneParish.com, a free app and web platform designed to help parishes grow their community and increase members’ involvement and giving.
Wellspring Committee
Neil and Anne Corkery are founders of the Wellspring Committee, an organisation operating out of Manassas, Virginia, which serves as a fund for conservative political non-profit groups. Founded in 2008, the Wellspring Committee regularly contributes funding to non-profits that create advertisements for Republican candidates and causes. Influential as a well-connected power couple in Washington, they have supported Catholic appointments to the Supreme Court, and have supported groups that campaign against same-sex marriage and abortion.
CEO, Amicus Therapeutics
John F Crowley, 55, is the executive chairman of Amicus Therapeutics, a global biotechnology company which he founded in 2005 and which now has a presence in more than two dozen countries and a market value in excess of $3 billion. Crowley’s involvement with biotechnology stems from the 1998 diagnosis of two of his children with Pompe disease. In his drive to find a cure for them, he became an entrepreneur in the field. He is a former national chairman of the Make-A-Wish Foundation of America, and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Notre Dame when he delivered the commencement address to the Class of 2020. He lives in Florida.
Co-founder, The Carlyle Group
Daniel A D’Aniello, 75, is a co-Founder and chairman of the Carlyle Group, a global alternative asset management company headquartered in Washington DC with over $188 billion in assets under management. Prior to forming Carlyle in 1987, D’Aniello was a vice-president for Finance and Development at Marriott Corporation, and prior to that was a financial officer at Pepsi and Trans World Airlines. He is a 1974 graduate of the Harvard Business School, where he was a Teagle Foundation Fellow. In 2003, he and some Catholic business leaders founded the Lumen Institute, whose purpose is “to form business leaders and transform culture”.
Founder, Packaging Express
James “Jim” Davis is founder and partner of Packaging Express of Colorado Springs. Previously, Davis was a partner in Denver’s Deline Box Company for more than 30 years. In recognition of his professional success, he was inducted into the Association of Independent Corrugated Converters/Paperboard Packaging hall of fame in 2013. Outside work, his leadership carries over into his community service; he is a member of the National Advisory Board of the Catholic Leadership Institute.
Chairman, Warner Bros
Samuel A DiPiazza Jr, 72, is the chairman of Warner Bros Discovery and is a former CEO of PricewaterhouseCoopers. He graduated from the University of Alabama with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and earned a master of accountancy degree from the University of Houston. He joined PwC in 1973 and became a partner in 1979: the youngest in the firm’s history. He is on the board of directors of St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, Seton Education Partners, Inner City Scholarship of NY, and is a former member of the board of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum.
Founder, Cablevision and HBO
Charles Dolan is the founder of Cablevision and HBO. He served in the US Air Force at the end of World War II, after which he entered the field of telecommunications. The Fairfield University Dolan School of Business is named in recognition of his $25 million donation and his service to the university as a member of the board of trustees. The Dolan Center for Science and Technology, completed in 2003 at a cost of over $66 million, is John Carroll’s showcase building. He is the chairman emeritus of the Lustgarten Foundation, the largest private funder of pancreatic cancer research in the world.
Co-Founder & Partner Emeritus, DCM Ventures
For more than 35 years, Dixon Doll has guided entrepreneurs, investors and executives in the computer, communications, and internet industries. Doll founded DCM Ventures, where he built a leading global VC firm with offices in Silicon Valley, Beijing and Tokyo. DCM is also widely regarded as the first Silicon Valley venture firm successfully to invest in China, Japan and the US. In 2021, Doll received the lifetime achievement award in venture capital from the US National Venture Capital Association. He sits on the boards of the Papal Foundation and the Catholic Investment Services.
Sugar magnates
Alfonso, José, Alexander and Andres Fanjul are all co-owners of Fanjul Corp. Comprising numerous subsidiaries, it is a huge sugar and real-estate conglomerate in the United States and the Dominican Republic. Some of its subsidiaries include La Romana International Airport, and many resorts surrounding La Romana in the Dominican Republic. All are Catholics; Pepe and Alfonso have been honoured by the Diocese of Palm Beach for their dedication to Catholic charities in the area.
Philanthropist and former GM, Microsoft
Melinda French Gates, 58, is a philanthropist and former general manager at Microsoft. In 2000, she and her former husband Bill Gates founded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She has been awarded both the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the French Legion of Honour. Gates attended St Monica Catholic School and in 1982 graduated as valedictorian from the Ursuline Academy of Dallas.
Gates practises her own brand of Catholicism, however, and in 2012 she broke publicly with the Church’s opposition to artificial birth control when the Gates Foundation launched a global campaign to expand reproductive rights for women.
Managing partner, MM Hayes Company
David Hayes is a managing partner at MM Hayes Co, a software company focused on labour-management solutions for the workplace and headquartered in Albany, New York. Hayes and his wife Lauren have been married for 26 years and have five children; the Hayes family’s Irish heritage and Catholic faith have been integral parts of their lives, forming a foundation for success in business, sports, and most importantly family. He joined MM Hayes in 1988 after graduating from Boston College. He is presently one of the managing partners alongside his father Michael M Hayes and two brothers, Michael and John.
Healey Family Foundation
Thomas J Healey, 79, was a partner at Goldman Sachs and is senior fellow at Harvard University’s John F Kennedy School of Government. He was a former assistant secretary of the United States Treasury under President Ronald Reagan. He was a trustee and chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation Investment Committee and served a similar role at Georgetown University. He serves on the emeritus board of FADICA and received their 2020 St Katharine Drexel Award for Catholic philanthropy.
President, Legatus International
President of Legatus International since 2016 – the peer group of choice among top Catholic executives, with over 5,000 members – Henley was formerly a Legatus regional vice president. A graduate of Ave Maria University and a father of six, he served six years as a sergeant in the US Marine Corps with a full-year activation and seven-month deployment in Iraq. Following this, he served at AMU as director of security and life safety.
Chairman,Conrad Hilton Foundation
Steven M Hilton, 71, is son of hotel magnate Barron Hilton and grandson of Conrad Hilton, who founded the Hilton hotels chain. He lives in Malibu where he enjoys surfing and has a black belt in aikido. He is the chairman of the Conrad N Hilton Foundation, a non-profit charitable foundation established in 1944 which aims to improve the lives of underprivileged and vulnerable people across the globe. By the time he retired in 2015 as CEO of the foundation, his family had given away over $1.4 billion to causes that included the Catholic Sisters Initiative and the Perkins School for the Blind. He has served on the finance council of his local archdiocese and on the board of Loyola Marymount University.
Businesswoman and philanthropist
Luci Baines Johnson is an American businesswoman and philanthropist. She is the younger daughter of President Lyndon B Johnson and his wife, Claudia Johnson. Johnson converted to Roman Catholicism at the age of 18. Since 1993, she has been the chairman of the board and manager of LBJ Asset Management Partners. She is on the board of directors of the LBJ Foundation and has served on multiple civic boards, raising funds for the American Heart Association, acting as trustee of Boston University, and as a member of the advisory board of the Center for Battered Women.
Fintech entrepreneur and philanthropist
Daniel Keegan is the former co-head of global equities at Citigroup. He previously served for three years as head of equities (Americas) at Citi, having joined in 2007. He recently left the role to launch a fintech investment fund. Born in New Jersey, Keegan attended the University of Notre Dame, receiving a BA and later a JD at Notre Dame Law School. Before joining Citigroup, Daniel was employed at JPMorgan Chase. He went to Catholic grammar school, high school, college and law school, and has stated in interviews that his Catholicism has always been a big part of his life. His philanthropy includes being chairman of the Ireland Funds Gala dinner in 2017 that raised $2.65 million for Irish causes and charities including a new Irish Arts Center on Manhattan’s West Side.
President and CEO, Teleflex
Liam J Kelly is the chairman, president and CEO of Teleflex. He joined Teleflex in 2009 and since then has held a variety of roles. Born and raised in Galway, Ireland, Kelly and his wife, Helen, are both graduates of the University of Limerick. In 2014 they relocated to Philadelphia with their five children.
Businessman and philanthropist
Kenneth Gerard Langone is a businessman, investor, and philanthropist who arranged financing for the founders of the Home Depot. He was played by actor Ray Iannicelli in the HBO drama Wizard of Lies, about Bernie Madoff. He has given significantly to the Republican Party. In 2018, Langone pledged $100 million in funding towards a $450 million programme to make tuition free for all medical students at the NYU School of Medicine. He is a practising Catholic, and was made a Knight of St Gregory by Pope Benedict XVI.
Businessman, landowner and philanthropist
John Malone is a businessman and philanthropist who is also America’s largest private landowner. Born in Connecticut, he built Tele-Communications Inc into a cable and media giant from 1973 to 1996. Malone is now chairman and largest voting shareholder of Liberty Media, which owns F1, Liberty Global and Qurate Retail Group. He also owns 7 per cent of Lionsgate and Starz Inc.
A leading philanthropist, his causes are focused on land preservation, medical research and animal rescue. “You should use your money to do what you regard as good things for your society and your fellow men,” he has said. “I also don’t believe in hereditary wealth.” His gifts include Yale’s Daniel L Malone Engineering Center, named after Malone’s father. He has gifted $50m to the university’s engineering school and another $30m to the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering to build the Malone Hall. He owns several million acres including estates in New Mexico, Florida, Maryland, Maine New Hampshire, Colorado and Wyoming. He is proud of his Irish heritage and is a self-confessed “restore-a-wreck” historic-property buyer. He has restored Humewood Castle in Wicklow, various hotels in Dublin and Limerick and Castlemartin House on the banks of the Liffey, in County Kildare. The former home of media tycoon Tony O’Reilly, the estate includes a restored medieval church, St Mary’s, which was reconsecrated for Catholic worship in 1981.
Chairman, the Raskob Foundation for Catholic Activities
Patrick W McGrory is a private-wealth specialist with Liberty Point Advisors. He has played a significant role for over 25 years in his family’s foundation, the Raskob Foundation for Catholic Activities, which supports domestic and international projects from institutions and organisations identified with the Catholic Church; he serves as the chairman. He is also a board member of the Global Solidarity Fund and in 2016 was honoured with the Ignatius Award by the Saint Joseph’s University Alumni Association.
Former chairman, McDonald’s
Andrew McKenna was the chairman of McDonald’s, the largest fast-food chain in the world, from 2004 until his retirement in 2016. McKenna is a Catholic and attended the University of Notre Dame for his bachelor’s degree; he received his JD from DePaul University College of Law.
Philanthropists
Daniel Mezzalingua has had a career in a variety of fields including cable television and education. In addition to these business ventures, he is also on the boards of trustees at St Bonaventure University and Ave Maria University. Kathleen Mezzalingua is a dame of the Order of Malta and led the Syracuse Region as Hospitaller for ten years. She has been active in the order helping the sick, frail and poor in the community, and has taken part in ten of the order’s pilgrimages to Lourdes.
Former CEO, Chrysler, Home Depot and Freedom Group
Robert Nardelli, 74, operates the investment firm XLR-8 LLC. Previously he served as the CEO of Chrysler and has served in a similar capacity at Home Depot and Freedom Group. A practising Catholic, Nardelli also served as the head of operations and advisory business of Cerebus Management LP. He also once worked at General Electric where he was one of the top executives.
Managing director, Hager Pacific Properties
Robert Neal, 60, is a managing director with Hager Pacific Properties. Neal is active in the Church’s charitable activities and has held positions at several Catholic non-profit organisations including Catholic Relief Services, the Becket Fund, Catholic Leadership Institute, Magis Institute of Reason and Faith, the Orange Coast Chapter of Legatus International, and Christ Catholic Cathedral Corporation. In addition, both Neal and his wife, Berni, are stewards of the Papal Foundation.
Trustee, William M & Miriam F Meehan Foundation
Maureen O’Leary is a trustee of the William M & Miriam F Meehan Foundation and a 2020 winner of a FADICA St Katharine Drexel award for Catholic philanthropy; she is a member of St Ignatius Jesuit parish in Manhattan. After Columbia University, she trained as a psychologist and spent years researching the problems of human trafficking. She has launched a report on the anti-trafficking efforts at Catholic colleges and universities and instigated two Vatican youth conferences, bringing together survivors and anti-slavery leaders.
Real estate developer and philanthropist
Bill Orosz has spent his entire working career focused within the real estate industry. His charity, The Orosz Family Foundation supports religious, educational and medical research initiatives in Florida, where he lives. He is founding chair of the Catholic Foundation of Central Florida, and is a member of the President’s Advisory Council for Fellowship of Catholic University Students. He previously served as a board member and chair of the Catholic Leadership Institute and is a member of the Napa Institute Guild.
Chairman, Ranieri Partners
Lewis Ranieri, 75, is a former bond trader and founding partner and current chairman of the real-estate firm Ranieri Partners. He previously served as the vice-chairman of Salmon Brothers and formed Hyperion Partners in 1991 before selling it to United Bank of Texas. In 2005, Bishop William Murphy of the Diocese of Rockville Centre appointed Ranieri to form Tomorrow’s Hope Foundation, a non-profit organisation providing assistance to the Catholic schools in the diocese. The foundation has provided scholarships to thousands of families seeking Catholic education for their children.
President, Marren Properties
Mark Rauenhorst, 60, is the president of Marren Properties. Prior to this role, he served as the CEO of Opus Corporation. Rauenhorst has also taken a keen interest in Catholic education. He serves on the board of directors of Ascension Catholic Academy, Catholic Relief Services, Creighton University, GHR Foundation and the Advisory Council for the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. In 2020, he and his wife, Karen, were presented with the Notre Dame Award for outstanding contributions to Catholic education.
Founder and CEO, Rex
Peter Rex, in his thirties, is the founder and CEO of Rex, a technology, investment and real-estate firm headquartered in Austin, Texas. Rex is a former seminarian who attended both Ave Maria University and Georgetown. Rex’s Catholic faith has played a large role in his professional life; he sits on the board of visitors at the Catholic University of America’s Busch School of Business and is a member of Legatus. In 2016, Rex helped found the Cristo Rey Tampa Salesian High School, providing a Catholic education to 175 low-income students.
Multimedia businessman
Marcos Rodriguez, 64, is the founder and CEO of numerous American media outlets including KLTY and KUUR. an FM radio station serving the Carbondale, Colorado area, and TV Aspen, KCXP-LP, a television station in Aspen, Colorado. He founded KLTY in Dallas, Texas in 1981; it became the nation’s largest and most successful Christian radio station and set the example for all future Christian stations.
CEO, Saul Centers
Francis Saul is the CEO of Saul Centers, based in Bethesda, Maryland, a firm he inherited from his grandfather. In addition to his family company, he also owns The Hay-Adams, a five-star hotel across the road from the White House which brands itself as “discreetly luxurious”. Throughout his life, Saul has given generously to Catholic causes. In 1991, Pope John Paul II awarded him the Pro Ecclesia et Pro Pontifice Medal.
Lawyer and philanthropist
Christine Schwarzman is the lawyer wife of Stephen Schwarzman, the founder and CEO of Blackstone. Christine, a Roman Catholic, married Schwarzmann (who is Jewish) in 1995 in an interfaith ceremony. In 2001, she introduced him to the late Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Edward Egan, and Schwarzman reportedly gave Egan financial advice to help the finances of the archdiocese. The Schwarzmans have been sponsoring students at Catholic schools for many years. In 2015, they donated $40 million to help underprivileged students receive a Catholic education, and then welcomed Pope Francis to Our Lady Queen of Angels School in East Harlem, New York.
Philanthropist
MacKenzie Scott, 52, is a novelist and philanthropist who is the ex-wife of the former Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. At Princeton, she was taught by Toni Morrison, the Nobel Prize-winning Catholic novelist. Morrison introduced her to Jeff Bezos. Named as one of Time’s 100 most influential people of 2020, she has signed the Giving Pledge. In 2021, she gave several million dollars to a multi-religious advocacy group, Faith in Public Life. The group, according to CNA, takes a “progressive” view in regards to the Catholic bishops’ debate on the Eucharist and Catholic public figures.
“Discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities has been deepening, so we assessed organisations bridging divides through interfaith support and collaboration,” said Scott in announcing the gift. We believe Scott was raised Catholic.
Her parents have been active members of the Florida Catholic community for many years, attending galas for the Catholic charities of the Diocese of Palm Beach. Her mother Holly also serves on a parish committee at St Edward’s Roman Catholic Church in Palm Beach. Scott has given substantial sums to homeless charities affiliated with the Catholic Church.
Antoun Nabil Sehnaoui
Entrepreneur
Antoun Nabil Sehnaoui, 49, is a Lebanese-American entrepreneur and producer. His ventures range from banking and real estate to tourism and film. He is the CEO of Société Général de Banque au Liban and FIDUS Wealth management. He also founded Lebanon of Tomorrow, a charity dedicated to helping marginalised communities. Sehnaoui comes from a Greek Catholic background and arranged the St Charbal dedicated shrine at St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.
Chairman, the William E Simon Foundation
William Simon is a businessman and politician who unsuccessfully ran for governor of California as a Republican in 2002. Currently, he serves as the chairman of the William E Simon Foundation and the Cynthia L & William E Simon Jr Foundation. He is also a visiting professor in the law school and economics department at UCLA. In 2011, he co-authored, along with Michael Novak, the book Living the Call: An Introduction to the Lay Vocation. This inspired him to launch his Parish Catalyst, a project helping priests revitalise parishes across the country.
Philanthropists
Lisa and Justin Simpson are from the Bay Area, California. Simpson currently serves as the CEO of the Global Fund for Forgotten People, an initiative of the Order of Malta; prior to this, he held several senior positions at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. His wife, Lisa, serves as the current director for the Corporations and Society Initiative at Stanford University Graduate School of Business. She has held senior positions at media firms including NBC, CBS and Sony, and was regional campaign director for Ronald Reagan’s 1984 presidential campaign.
Chair, the Crimsonbridge Foundation
Gabriela Smith is the founder and executive chair of the Crimsonbridge Foundation, one of the 2.3 per cent Hispanic-led foundations in the country. An entrepreneurial philanthropist and investor, she has 25 years of philanthropic experience and currently serves as a lay consultant to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, as president of the Catholic Association of Latino Leaders (Washington DC chapter), and as a member of the board of directors of FADICA, the premier Catholic philanthropy network. She is married with a son and two daughters.
Co-founder, GSO Capital Partners
Albert “Tripp” Smith, 57, is the co-founder of GSO Capital Partners. After GSO’s acquisition by the Blackstone Group in 2008, he remained as managing director until his departure from the company in 2018. Following that, Smith founded Iron Park Capital Partners in 2019. In addition to his business career, he purchased a 10 per cent stake in the football club West Ham United, and currently serves as a non-executive director of the club. Smith comes from a Catholic background, having attended Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School and the University of Notre Dame.
Chairman, Ancestry board of directors
Mark Thompson, 65 and residing in New York, is chairman of the board of directors of Ancestry, the largest for-profit genealogy company in the world. He is a former media executive, having been president and CEO of the New York Times Company, a former director-general of the BBC and was before that acting as the chief executive of Channel 4. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2017. A Catholic, Thompson was educated at Stonyhurst College, Lancashire.
President, Wolohan Family Foundation
Michael J Wolohan MD is a board-certified orthopaedic surgeon who has practiced in Saginaw, Michigan, for the last 28 years; he received his bachelor of science degree from the University of Notre Dame. Wolohan is Ppresident of the Wolohan Family Foundation, chair of the board of FADICA and a member of the Catholic Relief Services Foundation Board. He currently serves as president of the Catholic Community Foundation of mid-Michigan; he has also been active in support of Saginaw Area Catholic Schools for many years.
President and CIO, Equinox Partners
Sean Fieler is a charismatic figure in the New York financial and philanthropy world and named his Chiaroscuro Foundation after a painting style used by such Renaissance artists as Caravaggio, which uses high contrast for maximum effect. “Reflecting God’s light in a dark world” is how Fieler has described his foundation’s socially conservative mission.
Upon completing undergraduate studies, Fieler joined Equinox Partners (a global value fund focused on emerging markets and gold mining) as an intern. He is now the firm’s chief investment officer and majority owner. Fieler speaks and talks on the monetary system; he has lectured on monetary policy at the annual Grant’s Conference, the Atlas Liberty Forum and has written for the Wall Street Journal and the Hill.
Fieler’s Chiaroscuro Foundation invests in education, family strengthening, humanitarian work, pro-life activities, religious liberty, evangelism and other causes. A particular concern of Fieler’s is the importance of family and marriage to American society. He has spoken out on the importance of upholding the traditional Catholic view of marriage and family values. He is focused on what can be achieved legally and politically to reduce the high incidence of abortion; his priority is pre-conception causes as much as post.
He first got into public-space philanthropy through attending a conference on family law at David Blankenhorn’s Institute for American Values. “I got a sense of how deep the problems were surrounding families in America, both in our culture and in law and policy. I ended up joining the board,” he told Philanthropy Roundtable. He admires Catholics like Clarence Thomas who are not afraid to speak out on moral issues, rather than trimming one’s sails for expediency’s sake.
Fieler once argued in the New York Times that it was disingenuous to argue that gay relationships “lend themselves to monogamy, stability, health and parenting in the same way heterosexual relationships do”. As a result of his public stance, which includes opposition to transgender bathrooms (which he tried to abolish in California via the Privacy for All Act), Fieler has become a hero of the American cultural right. He is unabashed about describing himself as a social conservative fighting for religious liberty. “You can have freedom within your place of worship, but no rights to bring religious principles outside, into your life, your business, the public square,” he has said.
He serves as chairman of the American Principles Project, Communio and the Knights of Columbus Charitable Fund. He lives in Stamford, Connecticut, with his wife Ana and six children. He and Ana were married in New York by Father John McGuire of the Dominicans.
Entrepreneur and philanthropist
Frank J Hanna III is a leading Catholic philanthropist and entrepreneur who has been CEO of Hanna Capital in Atlanta, Georgia, since 2006. His influence is wide-ranging and he is regarded by other Catholic philanthropists as a primus inter pares role model. Hanna has served on the boards of Catholic cable television network EWTN, the Catholic Leadership Institute and the Busch School of Business of the Catholic University of America. He also supports FOCUS (the Fellowship of Catholic University Students), Lumen Institute, the Pontifical North American College, and Sophia Institute Press.
Hanna was profiled in the PBS documentary The Call of the Entrepreneur. The son of “Pop”, Hanna Jr was brought up seeing his father support many Atlanta charities and civic organisations as well as Atlanta’s Holy Spirit parish in Buckhead, run by the charismatic Monsignor Edward Dillon.
Hanna has helped to shape Catholic life and education in America in a national role. He served as chair of a Commission on Education Excellence under President George W Bush, and he has been involved in 13 new educational institutions, from pre-school through post-secondary. These include two schools in Atlanta, serving on the boards of each: Holy Spirit Preparatory School and Holy Spirit College.
Hanna was chosen by George W Bush to be co-chair of the President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans. He is an advocate of educational and religious liberty, and supports the Federalist Society, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and the Acton Institute. He also supports, or serves on the board of, the American Enterprise Institute, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, and the Philanthropy Roundtable. He has written two books: What Your Money Means, and A Graduate’s Guide to Life, the latter of which was recommended by George Weigel in First Things. As the founder of the Solidarity Association, he helps the causes of Catholic education and Catholic formation. It came to public attention in 2007 after it purchased the Mater Verbi (Hanna) Papyrus from the Bodmer Foundation in Cologny, and donated it to the Vatican Apostolic Library in a ceremony attended by Pope Benedict XVI. Dating from between AD 175 and 225, the papyrus is the oldest extant copy of portions of the Gospels of Luke and John as well as the oldest transcription of the Lord’s Prayer. Hanna has been awarded the William B Simon prize for philanthropic leadership, and the David R Jones award for philanthropic leadership. He is also a Knight of Malta, a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, and was named a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Gregory by Pope Benedict.
Founder, Domino’s Pizza
Tom Monaghan founded Domino’s Pizza in 1960. Brought up in a Michigan orphanage after his father died, he was driven by a strong work ethic to build his pizza franchise into one of the largest in the world before selling to Bain Capital for $1 billion.
He owned the Detroit Tigers baseball team from 1992 to 1993 and also owns the largest Frank Lloyd Wright architecture collection in the world. Monaghan has been a major Catholic philanthropist, saying that his love of the Catholic Church stemmed from his time at the St Joseph Home for Boys, and in particular the influence of Sister Berada who instilled in him the belief that anything was possible. He then went onto St Francis High School where he tested a vocation to the priesthood and joined St Joseph’s Seminary in Grand Rapids. He was asked to leave for disciplinary reasons (talking in chapel and pillow fighting) and later said that was one of the greatest failures and disappointments of his life. His gifts include $3.5 million to the rebuilding of the cathedral in Managua, Nicaragua. He supports pro-life charities including Priests for Life. He has helped with the founding of several Catholic organisations including the Ave Maria Foundation, Legatus International, Ave Maria University, and the Spiritus Sanctus Academies. He is also actively involved in politics and endorsed Donald Trump in 2020.
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
Areas of Catholic Herald business are still recovering post-pandemic.
However, we are reaching out to the Catholic community and readership, that has been so loyal to the Catholic Herald. Please join us on our 135 year mission by supporting us.
We are raising £250,000 to safeguard the Herald as a world-leading voice in Catholic journalism and teaching.
We have been a bold and influential voice in the church since 1888, standing up for traditional Catholic culture and values. Please consider donating.