Direct Relief today announced the appointment of Emma Carrasco and Adam Cooper to the organization’s Board of Directors, each bringing considerable business and nonprofit acumen to bear on the organization’s growing humanitarian efforts. Direct Relief Chair Emeritus Mark Schwartz was also recently appointed as a director, returning to the organization’s Board after previously serving for ten years.

The new board appointments come at a time of significant growth for the organization’s global humanitarian response efforts, including being the largest charitable provider of personal protective equipment, or PPE, worldwide in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and as the largest private provider of medicines and medical supplies into Ukraine since Feb. 2022.

A leader in providing medical humanitarian aid to those in need, Direct Relief is ranked fifth on Forbes List of Top 100 Charities and earned a renewed four-star rating from Charity Navigator in 2022, America’s largest independent charity evaluator, for the 12th consecutive year.

“Direct Relief is thrilled to welcome these impressively accomplished individuals to its board,” said Mark Linehan, Direct Relief’s Board Chair. “Each of their unique perspectives, experience, and interests will support the advancement of the organization’s mission of mobilizing essential medical and other resources across the U.S. and around the world.”

• Emma Carrasco is Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs at NBCUniversal News Group. Carrasco joined NBCU News Group from National Geographic Society, where she was Chief Marketing and Communications Officer and SVP of Global Strategy since 2016. She previously spent four years at NPR as Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President for Audience Development. Before that, Carrasco was Executive Vice President at Miami-based marketing agency RepúblicaHavas. Until recently, she was a board member of Toast Ale, a certified B Corporation dedicated to eradicating food waste.

• Adam Cooper served for more than 18 years as Senior Managing Director and General Counsel of Citadel LLC, where he oversaw global legal, compliance, transaction management and regulatory affairs functions. Following Citadel, Adam served as the Chair of the Advisory Board of Driehaus Capital Management. Among other financial markets industry board and non-profit work, he has served on the Northwestern Memorial Hospital Foundation Board and Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law Board for many years and was the Law Board’s Chair between 2018 and 2020. Adam spent the first 12 years of his career at the Law Firm Katten Muchin Rosenman.

• Mark Schwartz is a Co-Founder/Co-Managing Partner of KSHFO, LLC, a multi-family office that focuses on investments in technology and real estate.  He was formerly the Chairman and CEO of Specialty Merchandise Corporation (“SMC”), an import distribution company.  Prior to SMC, he was a Vice President at Goldman Sachs. Mark received his MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, where he served on the Management Board, and his BA from UC Santa Barbara, where he is a current Trustee of the UC Santa Barbara Foundation.  He is a former Chairman of the Beverly Hills chapter of the Young President’s Organization and a current member of CEO, Chief Executives Organization.  He previously served on the Direct Relief Board of Directors from 2012-2021, serving as Chairman from 2018-2020.

The Direct Relief Board of Directors will serve three-year terms.

A full list of Direct Relief’s Board and leadership is available here.