Sam Gill

Samsher (Sam) Singh Gill is the third president and CEO of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF), a New York-headquartered, national philanthropic organization that supports the performing arts, medical research, the environment and child well-being. He also serves as president of several operating foundations that run under DDCF’s umbrella, including the Duke Farms Foundation, which operates a center for environmental stewardship in Hillsborough, N.J., and the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, which operates a museum for learning about the global cultures of Islamic art and design in Honolulu as well as a New York-based grants program with a related mission.

Prior to joining DDCF in April 2021, Gill was senior vice president and chief program officer at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, where he oversaw more than $100 million in annual grantmaking across the foundation’s programs, in addition to managing Knight’s research and assessment portfolio and its grants administration function. Previously, he also served as vice president of Freedman Consulting, LLC.

Gill also served on the board of the Philip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science in Miami and on the Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship, a project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He attended the University of Chicago and the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.