NEW CO-CHAIRS ELECTED TO LEAD PACIFIC COUNCIL BOARD OF DIRECTORS

In January 2021, the Pacific Council on International Policy will welcome new co-chairs to its Board of Directors: Richard Goetz and Robert Lovelace. Both are longtime Pacific Council directors and were unanimously elected to their new roles by the Board of Directors at the Board’s May meeting.

On January 1, they will replace the Council’s current co-chairs, Marc Nathanson and Ambassador Rockwell Schnabel under whose leadership the Pacific Council has diversified both its membership and the offerings available to members, grown its operating budget and staff, modernized and updated its brand, and hosted world leaders including the first woman President of Ireland Mary Robinson, US Representative Karen Bass, LA Mayor Eric Garcetti, LA Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, former Secretaries of State John Kerry and Condoleezza Rice, and former President George W. Bush, who spoke at the Council’s 2017 Gala.  

Under their leadership, in consultation with the Council’s membership, the Board launched a new strategic plan for 2020-2025, with a renewed focus on capacity building, community partnerships, cultivating local-to-global expertise in Los Angeles, and promoting greater access to Council programming for the city’s uniquely diverse population. The strategic plan was the product of an inclusive process by the Board, staff, and Pacific Council members to determine new pathways for its members and for the community to engage with the 25-year-old organization. 

The Pacific Council maintains its commitment to improving diversity and inclusion across its membership, staff, and Board of Directors, as well as in its programming and with its guests. The Board of Directors recognizes that it must promote greater diversity, equity, and inclusion in leadership, and the incoming co-chairs have committed to prioritizing these efforts.

“This is a new era,” said Lovelace. “Rich and I are dedicated to expanding diversity and inclusion in the Board, staff, and membership of the Pacific Council, to better represent the communities and members we serve.”  

In the years ahead, the new co-chairs will also support the Council’s formal engagement in issue advancement work, especially in making local-to-global connections between traditionally domestic issues such as social inequality and Southern California’s leadership role on the world stage.

“As co-chair of the Pacific Council’s Guantánamo Bay Task Force and a member of Council delegations around the world, I have witnessed firsthand what an organization with global reach, community support, and uncompromising integrity can achieve,” said Goetz. “With the current pandemic and the social and political divides in America, the Council has an especially important role to play in advancing urgent issues of local and global significance. I’m honored to help lead the Council at such a crucial time.”

More about Richard Goetz

Rich Goetz is a partner at O’Melveny & Myers LLP. He is the firmwide Co-Chair of O’Melveny’s Litigation Department, and serves on the firm’s eight-member Global Management Team. A frequent writer on legal issues, he has co-led the Pacific Council’s Guantánamo Bay Task Force since 2013 and has served as a Pacific Council director since 2015. He was the Council’s first official observer of the Guantanamo proceedings against those charged with planning the 9/11 attacks and oversaw the creation of two Task Force reports, which have influenced national policy. He has been active in the Los Angeles County Bar Association, and was a longtime member of its Judicial Appointments Committee. He chairs the Board of Directors of Volunteers of America of Los Angeles, and serves on the Advisory Board of the Saks Institute for Mental Health Law, Policy, and Ethics at USC Gould School of Law. In 2015 he was elected to the American Law Institute. Mr. Goetz received his BA in 1981 summa cum laude from Dartmouth College and his J.D. in 1984 from the University of Chicago.

More about Robert Lovelace

Rob Lovelace is a portfolio manager for the American Funds and President of the New Perspective Fund and New World Fund. He is also Vice Chairman and a Director of the Capital Group Companies, President & CEO of Capital Research and Management Company, a subsidiary of Capital Group, and serves on the Capital Group Companies Management Committee. Rob has been a Pacific Council director since 2003. Mr. Lovelace joined Capital in 1985 after receiving a bachelor’s degree in mineral economics from Princeton University and holds the Chartered Financial Analyst® designation. He is a trustee of the J. Paul Getty Trust, a director of the California Community Foundation, and a director of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Foundation. He is also a founder of Vistamar School, a private independent high school in the South Bay region of Los Angeles.

More about Marc Nathanson

Mr. Marc B. Nathanson is currently Co-Chair of the Board of Directors at the Pacific Council on International Policy. In 2012, Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, appointed Mr. Nathanson as her representative to the Board of the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. Mr. Nathanson is Vice Chair of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, and was founding Chair of the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) for Los Angeles. He previously founded and served as Chairman and CEO of Falcon Cable TV. Mr. Nathanson additionally served as Chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors during the Clinton and Bush Administrations (1995-2002). He was also a member of the Presidentially-appointed Albanian Enterprise Fund. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Aspen Institute, and Center for the Digital Future at USC. Mr. Nathanson is also a member of the Los Angeles Coalition for the Economy and Jobs, and the Council on Foreign Relations.

More about Rockwell Schnabel

Ambassador Rockwell Schnabel serves as Co-Chair of the Pacific Council on International Policy’s Board of Directors. He is the founder and Chairman of The Sage Group, a boutique merchant bank in Los Angeles. He co-founded Trident Capital, a Palo Alto based venture capital firm. In addition to his long, successful career in business, Ambassador Schnabel has had a distinguished career in the U.S. Government, serving as U.S. Ambassador to Finland (1986-1989), U.S. Ambassador to the European Union (2001-2005), and Acting Secretary of Commerce (1991-1992). He served in the United States Air Force reserves for 6 years and was a member of the Los Angeles Olympic Committee, Chairman of the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau, and President of the Fire and Police Pension Fund. He was the former President of Bateman Eichler, Hills Richards, Inc. (Wells Fargo Bank). Mr. Schnabel has served on the board of numerous public and private companies in the United States, Europe, and Asia. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and a member of The USC Center on Public Diplomacy Advisory Board of the Annenberg School and he attended Trinity College in Europe.