Reynold Levy leads an active professional life.

He is a consultant to commercial and nonprofit institutions and to benefactors seeking to expand their philanthropy. In that capacity, he was a Senior Advisor to the private equity firm, General Atlantic and now serves in that role for East Rock Capital. Other clients have included The Poses Foundation, JED, The Foundation for Children with Learning Disabilities, Stephen Ross, Chair, Related, The Eva and Andy Grove Foundation, Suffolk Construction, The Peterson Institute for International Economics, and Third Way. Reynold also served as the lead director of First Republic Bank.

He has also written extensively and spoken widely about philanthropy, the performing arts, humanitarian causes and issues, and the leadership and management of nonprofit institutions.

Start Now: Because That Meaningful Job Is Out There, Just Waiting For You is his fifth book, published in January 2020 and readily available for purchase.

Civically, he is currently a trustee of the Charles H. Revson Foundation. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, on the Board of Overseers of the International Rescue Committee and on the Board of Advisors of the Center for Ballet and the Arts at New York University.

Most recently, Reynold served as President of the Robin Hood Foundation following a tenure of thirteen years as the CEO of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

His leadership at Lincoln Center continued a distinguished career of public service. He has been President of the International Rescue Committee, the senior officer of AT&T in charge of government relations, President of the AT&T Foundation, Executive Director of the 92nd Street Y, and Staff Director of the Task Force on the New York City Fiscal Crisis. 

Reynold Levy is a graduate of Hobart College. He was granted a Master’s Degree and PhD in Government and Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia and a law degree from Columbia University, the latter two in 1973. A member of Phi Beta Kappa, Reynold is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Levy’s alma mater, Hobart College, honored him with its Alumni Medal of Excellence, given to only twenty graduates in the 125 year history of the school. The International Rescue Committee bestowed on him its coveted Freedom Award. Columbia University granted Levy the highly regarded Lawrence A. Wien Prize for Social Responsibility. Lincoln Center accorded him its Laureate Award. Levy has received the 2009 Design Patron Award from the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt Museum for his stewardship of Lincoln Center’s massive physical transformation. In recognition of Lincoln Center’s successful modernization and rejuvenation, the Board of Directors decided to name a sculpturally expressive bridge designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro as “The President’s Bridge: In Honor of Reynold Levy, October 1, 2012.”

Levy has authored four other books, the New York Times bestselling They Told Me Not to Take That Job: Tumult, Betrayal, Heroics and the Transformation of Lincoln Center (2015, Public Affairs), Yours for the Asking: An Indispensable Guide To Fundraising and Management (2008, John Wiley and Sons), Give and Take: A Candid Account of Corporate Philanthropy (1999, Harvard Business School Press) and Nearing the Crossroads: Contending Approaches to American Foreign Policy (1975, Free Press of MacMillan).

Levy has held the post of Senior Lecturer at The Harvard Business School and has taught law, political science, and nonprofit management at Columbia and New York Universities and at The City University of New York. He has received honorary degrees from Dickinson College, Macaulay Honors College of The City University of New York, Fordham University and Hobart College. 

Levy has served on the Boards of more than a dozen nonprofit organizations including The Independent Sector, The Peterson Institute for International Economics, the Manhattan Theatre Club, the American Ballet Theatre and the Nathan Cummings Foundation. For three years he was a member of the Tony Awards Nominating Committee, a position that won him many would-be friends who thought that he could secure house seats for them to the hottest show in town, Hamilton. They were wrong. He was sorry to disappoint them.