Superman's savior shares successes
Peter Kiernan, who is gradually passing the torch after two years as CEO of the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, talks about bringing the foundation back from troubled times.
Charity fundraising had long been an emotionally rewarding sideline for Peter Kiernan, who spent 18 years at Goldman Sachs.
But in 2006, when he got a call from Dana Reeve, who was dying and asked him to move up from board member to chairman and chief executive of what is now the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, it became his full-time pursuit. Superman was in trouble—or rather the fund that was his namesake’s legacy was.
The actor, who died in 2004, had lent his name to the organization--formerly the American Paralysis Association--in 1995 after he was paralyzed in a horse-riding accident. It has raised over $100 million used for spinal cord research, programs that improve quality of life for the paralyzed and new therapies. But it had fallen on hard times after the Reeves’ deaths.
“The foundation needed a lot of attention,” Mr. Kiernan says. “Financially, we were not in great shape, and we were facing insolvency. We also had to morph our identity from two icons to the foundation brand.”
The charity also had organizational problems and was spending too much on fundraising.
Mr. Kiernan revamped operations, got heavy hitters to join the board and rekindled support from such celebrities as Robin Williams, Meryl Streep and Glenn Close. In just two years, Mr. Kiernan has taken the foundation from the brink of bankruptcy to projected record revenues of $20 million.
“We had a near-death experience, but the scary part is over,” he says.
With things back on track, Mr. Kiernan has stepped aside as CEO and will turn over many duties to Peter Wilderotter, who has been with the foundation since 2005 and also serves as president.
Reflecting on the turnaround, Mr. Kiernan says that taking the helm was quite a change from his big-bucks days, most recently as an adviser at Manhattan hedge fund Cyrus Capital Partners, and before that as head of his own firm, Kiernan Ventures.
“I stepped down from the hedge fund to take a job with zero compensation,” he says. “My focus had always been on money, and here I had an opportunity to do something new.”
Those who know him weren’t surprised.
“Peter is brilliant, tireless and commits to tasks with single-mindedness,” says David Salzman, executive director of the Robin Hood Foundation, a Manhattan nonprofit where Mr. Kiernan had also played a leadership role. “But above all, he is a fiercely loyal friend.”
Both Ms. Reeve and Mr. Reeve were old friends.
“The fabric of our lives was woven together,” says Mr. Kiernan, who met her when Ms. Reeve was an 18-year-old aspiring actress at Middlebury College in Vermont—playing Nurse Ratchett in a production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest—and he was an American Studies major at nearby Williams College in Massachusetts.
His friendship with Mr. Reeve went back even further. The two were on rival prep school hockey teams. Mr. Kiernan recalls once advising the actor to return a $1 million donation from a big-name financial player who shortly afterward was the target of a headline-grabbing scandal.
“Everyone has one friend who will tell someone the truth, even when it’s something they don’t want to hear,” Mr. Kiernan says. He and Mr. Reeve had that kind of relationship.
Mr. Kiernan also gets praise from board member Cristina Carlino, who founded and heads Philosophy, a high-end cosmetics company.
“We were all concerned about the organization after Dana died,” Ms. Carlino says. “Peter’s commitment has been just extraordinary.”
NAME: Peter Kiernan
AGE: 54
RÉSUMÉ: Chairman, Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation
EDUCATION: B.A., Williams College; M.B.A., University of Virginia
PERSONAL: Married 27 years to wife, Eaddo; four children, ages 16 to 23; lives in Greenwich, Conn
Sourse:
Crain's NY Business
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