Clinton Foundation Shuffles Leadership Team

Kevin Thurm, chief executive of the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, has left for a role at banking giant Barclays PLC, while two other lawyers affiliated with the nonprofit are moving into new leadership positions.

Thurm took a “new opportunity at Barclays,” the foundation said, crediting him with having overseen “a strategic refocusing” of its operations in the aftermath of the 2016 US presidential election.

Thurm joined the Clinton Foundation as chief operating officer in 2015 and took over two years later as CEO. Robert Harrison, a board member, will become interim CEO as of Nov. 19. Thurm is now a New York-based general counsel for legal risk, governance, and control at Barclays, said a source close to the bank.

Harrison, a former Davis Polk & Wardwell lawyer, spent most of his career as a partner at the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. From 2007 to 2016 he was CEO of the Clinton Global Initiative, a leadership conference linked to the foundation.

The foundation unveiled several other permanent and interim personnel changes as part of its leadership transition.

Amy Sandgrund-Fisher, a former Proskauer Rose associate who joined the foundation as general counsel in 2017 and was its head of human resources, has taken on the additional title of chief operating officer. She will oversee finance, HR, information technology, legal, and operations for the organization.

Three other veteran Clinton staffers—Bari Lurie, Lisa Hernández Gioia, and Stephanie Streett—will be, respectively, the foundation’s president, interim chief development officer, and leader of Project 42, a Clinton administration alumni initiative and network led by Thurm. The foundation, based in New York and Little Rock, Arkansas, declined to discuss the outcome of this week’s election.

Changing Times

Thurm didn’t respond to a comment request. An auto-response email message from Thurm at the foundation said he exited as of Oct. 26.

“I’m proud to have supported the foundation’s efforts in ‘putting people first,’ including by building on President Clinton, Secretary Clinton, and Chelsea’s legacy of leadership and by catalyzing solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges,” Thurm said in that message.

The foundation said Thurm began working for the Clintons in 1992 after he quit his job as an associate at Cahill Gordon & Reindel. The Harvard Law School graduate spent eight years in the Clinton administration, after which he served as a chief compliance officer and deputy general counsel at Citigroup Inc.

Thurm received roughly $482,400 in total compensation from the foundation during 2022, according to its most recent federal tax filing, which shows that Sandgrund-Fisher earned about $319,300 that same year. The charity usually files its annual Form 990 financial statement with the IRS this month.

Presidential nonprofits have faced various legal issues in recent years. Donald Trump dissolved his foundation in 2018 after he was accused of misusing it for personal expenses. Barack Obama’s foundation, which hired two legal chiefs in 2021, has litigated over his presidential library in Chicago. A court ruling this year allowed that project to proceed.

During the 2016 election cycle, the Clinton Foundation’s activities and finances came under scrutiny, including a review into potential conflicts of interest conducted by the law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. In recent years, donations and revenue fell as the Clinton family’s political fortunes changed.

The Clinton Foundation’s board includes several notable lawyers, including former Clinton White House counsel Bruce Lindsey, Cheryl Mills, and Maura Pally. Squire Patton Boggs partner Rodney Slater, who was Transportation secretary during the Clinton administration, joined the board this year.