Kim Laughton

Kim Thompson Laughton spent most of her career at Charles Schwab & Co., where she held a range of leadership, strategy, and general-management positions supporting the firm's growth and its mission of democratizing investing. From 2011 until her retirement effective July 1, 2021, she served as President of Schwab Charitable, the independent nonprofit donor-advised fund (DAF) provider affiliated with Schwab. She was succeeded by Sam Kang.

Under Laughton's roughly decade-long leadership, Schwab Charitable grew into one of the largest grantmaking charities in the United States. During her tenure the organization facilitated well over $17 billion in grants (later figures cited around $20 billion) to more than 175,000–180,000 charities, making DAF-based giving simpler and more tax-efficient for everyday donors.

Earlier in her career, before Schwab, Laughton was a vice president for Citibank Asia/Pacific in Singapore and a consultant at Bain & Company. She holds a BA in Economics and a BS in Biology from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, and she was named a Fellow of the Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute (DCI) in 2021. She has been recognized by the *San Francisco Business Times* as one of the Bay Area's most influential women in business.

Since retiring from Schwab Charitable, Laughton has built a portfolio of governance roles. She serves as an independent trustee/director of Equitable Funds (mutual funds affiliated with Equitable Holdings, NYSE: EQH) and on the boards of the Harris & Eliza Kempner Fund, Giving Compass, and DignityMoves (audit committee). She previously served on the boards of Students Rising Above and the Educational Foundation of Orinda, and is a member of the International Women's Forum. She was raised in Houston, Texas, and lives in Orinda, California, where she raised five children.

• Not a startup investor. Public sources show no angel, pre-seed, or seed-stage equity investing activity. Her "thesis," to the extent one exists, is philanthropic capital deployment through donor-advised funds.
• Grantmaking mission (Schwab Charitable): making charitable giving simpler, smarter, and more tax-efficient so donors give more — championing contributions of appreciated, non-cash assets (e.g., publicly traded securities) to maximize donors' charitable impact.
• Governance focus areas today: mutual-fund/board oversight (Equitable Funds), effective philanthropy (Giving Compass, Kempner Fund), and social-impact causes such as homelessness/housing (DignityMoves) and first-generation college access (formerly Students Rising Above).
• What would make her "say yes" in a governance/philanthropic context: rigorous, mission-aligned organizations with measurable impact, sound financial stewardship, and scalable models for expanding giving or access.