Trustees
The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit operating entity, governed by a nine-member Board of Trustees composed of the children and grandchildren of Leonore and Walter Annenberg.
Ambassador David J. Lane (Ret.) serves the board as president.
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Wallis Annenberg
TrusteeWallis Annenberg, chairman of the board, president, and CEO of the Annenberg Foundation, is Walter Annenberg’s daughter. She is a visionary who strives to improve the well-being of people and communities throughout the world, having spent much of her life focused on philanthropy dedicated to education, communications, arts and culture, medical research, animal welfare, social justice, and environmental stewardship.
As chair of the Foundation, Wallis has overseen the distribution of more than $237 million to more than 1,170 organizations. Prior to assuming her current positions, she directed the Foundation’s Los Angeles office in giving nearly half a billion dollars to over 1,000 organizations. Wallis’s commitment to building community space is seen through the creation of the Annenberg Community Beach House in Santa Monica; the innovative Universally Accessible Treehouse project in Torrance, California; and The Wallis Annenberg Center for Performing Arts in the historic Beverly Hills Post Office. In 2009, the Foundation opened the Annenberg Space for Photography, a state-of-the-art photographic print and digital gallery open to the public year-round and free of charge.
Wallis is the longest serving trustee at University of Southern California and has been honored by organizations such as Americans for the Arts, Shoah Foundation, House Ear Institute, and California African American Museum. She serves on the boards of Museum of Modern Art in New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; California Science Center; Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County; Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
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Lauren Bon
TrusteeLauren Bon, a vice president and director of the Annenberg Foundation, is trained as an architect and is a practicing visual artist. Her Metabolic Studio creates “devices of wonder” that are specific to sites: investigating land and water use and positing new modalities in thinking and behavior. Ms. Bon is a graduate of Princeton University and holds a master’s of architecture from MIT. For more than a decade, Ms. Bon lived in London where she studied at the Architectural Association. She resides in Los Angeles.
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Diane Deshong
TrusteeMrs. Diane Deshong of Beverly Hills, California, is a trustee of The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands. She is the daughter of the late Leonore Annenberg, former US Chief of Protocol for President Ronald Reagan, and stepdaughter of the late Walter Annenberg, who served as the United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s during the Nixon administration. Mrs. Deshong was born in California and has lived in Philadelphia, Florida, and New York. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with degrees in history and political science, she worked in the newsroom for Philadelphia’s WFIL-TV and as an advertising copywriter for Doubleday Publishing in New York. She also worked in public relations and as an assistant photo editor for TV Guide. Her late husband, Howard Deshong Jr., was a respected advertising and marketing executive in New York. When the family moved to Southern California in the 1970s, the Deshongs cofounded Deshong Studios, a photography studio renowned for its beautiful images of food that were used in magazine features, advertising, and packaging. In addition to her service at Sunnylands, Mrs. Deshong is an active community volunteer, serving on the board of Assistance League of Los Angeles and Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge, where she recently concluded a term as president of the Los Angeles chapter. She is also a member of ARCS, Achievement Rewards for College Scientists. She has a daughter, Leonore; a son, Howard III; daughter-in-law, Jeannette; and two grandsons.
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Howard Deshong
Trustee & Co-chairHoward Deshong III is the managing partner of Galileo Partners, an investment advisory firm based in Los Angeles. He serves on the boards of several non-profits, including The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands, the Annenberg School for Communication Trust at the University of Southern California, and Harvey Mudd College. He is also on the boards of two private technology companies: Classy.org, headquartered in San Diego, California, and Marine Learning Systems, headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. Howard earned a BS in physics at Harvey Mudd College, and a MALD and PhD (on counter-terrorism policy) at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He worked on defense-related issues at the RAND Corporation for six years followed by three years at a nonpartisan Congressional agency. Howard then entered the private sector, joining Oppenheimer Investment Advisers in 2001. He left that firm to help start Bristlecone Value Partners in 2004, and founded Galileo Partners in 2007. He adores his wife, Jeannette, their two children, and the family’s well-fed dog.
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Leonore Deshong
TrusteeLeonore Deshong of Beverly Hills, California, is a trustee of The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands. Her interests include helping children with special needs as well as animal welfare and care. She studied veterinary technology at Pierce College and English literature at University of Redlands. She volunteers with Meals on Wheels and also enjoys taking painting and drawing classes.
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Elizabeth Rosenstiel Kabler
TrusteeElizabeth Kabler was born in West Palm Beach, Florida, and maintains residences in New York City and Greenwich, Connecticut. She is a graduate of the Shipley School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and Bennett College in Millbrook, New York. She is the daughter of the late Leonore Annenberg, the former U.S. Chief of Protocol for President Ronald Reagan and the stepdaughter of the late Walter Annenberg. Her father was Lewis S. Rosenstiel, founder of Schenley Products Company, the predecessor of Schenley Distillers Corporation. Mrs. Kabler is vice president of the Rosenstiel Foundation and is a Fellow at the Rosenstiel Basic Medical Sciences Research Center at Brandeis University. She lends philanthropic support of marine biology studies at University of Miami, where her father founded Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.
Mrs. Kabler is a board member of the World Policy Institute and the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD). Her philanthropic interests include support for the problems of adolescence, especially addiction and eating disorders. In 2008, she launched The New York Center for Living, a licensed after-school rehabilitation center focusing on adolescent substance abuse. She served as a board member for more than ten years at the Chapin School, but resigned to devote her efforts to The New York Center for Living. She is a strong supporter of both the arts and the sciences through the Rosenstiel Foundation. She serves on the drawing and photography committees of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Mrs. Kabler is a member of the chairman’s council at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a board member of the Friends of Art and Preservation in Embassies (FAPE). One of Mrs. Kabler’s great passions is the theater. She is a member of the American Theater Wing, a Tony Voter, and has produced Off-Broadway shows. The Rosenstiel Foundation, in collaboration with the Directors Company, has produced two successful plays – Goodwill (an adaptation of a Jane Smiley novella) starring Dana Reeve, and The Passion of Frieda Kahlo starring Priscilla Lopez. Mrs. Kabler has a daughter, Liz Kabler Sorensen, son-in-law, Johan Sorensen, and three grandchildren.
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Elizabeth Sorensen
TrusteeElizabeth Sorensen is a trustee of The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands. She is an art adviser and curator. Liz is founder of Skylight Projects, an alternative art space in New York City that featured younger emerging artists, and she has written for catalogs and magazines. Liz is secretary of the board of Desert X an art biennial in Palm Springs, California, and sits on the boards of Creative Time in New York and the Serpentine Gallery and Artangel in London. A graduate of Sotheby’s Master’s degree program, she resides in London with her husband, Johan, and three children.
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Charles Annenberg Weingarten
TrusteeCharles Annenberg Weingarten, a trustee of The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands and a vice president and director of the Annenberg Foundation, has broad interests in entrepreneurialism, the arts, and philanthropy. He is dedicated to advancing opportunities in education; improving the quality of life in third world nations; exploring the power and potential of emerging communication technologies; and supporting creative and visionary efforts to preserve the environment. He has funded environmental causes such as the Pacific Northwest Orca population monitoring project at the Center for Whale Research. Charles’s current philanthropic venture is explore, a groundbreaking multimedia initiative that makes use of traditional broadcast, film, and new-media outlets to showcase leaders around the world who have devoted their lives to extraordinary causes. He has a MFA from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and has written and directed several films. He holds a BA from Duke University.
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Gregory Annenberg Weingarten
Trustee & Co-chairGregory Annenberg Weingarten is a trustee of The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands and is also a vice president and director of the Annenberg Foundation. He is dedicated to supporting innovative projects in the arts, education, and humanitarian efforts through GRoW Annenberg Foundation. His efforts to create a vibrant partnership between France and America have earned him several honors, including France’s prestigious Legion of Honor. His wife, Regina, a partner in Weingarten’s philanthropy, has also received the Legion of Honor. Gregory holds a degree in political science from Stanford University. Prior to embarking on a career as an artist, he worked as a journalist at The Times of London. Gregory shows his work in the United States and France and currently lives in Santa Monica, California.
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Ambassador David J. Lane (Ret.)
Ambassador David J. Lane is President of The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands, a post he has held since September 2016. Over the course of his career, he has been a leader in both non-profit and governmental sectors, including serving as U.S. Representative to the United Nations Agencies in Rome from May 2012 until August 2016.
From 2007 until 2011, Amb. Lane served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the ONE Campaign, a global advocacy organization focused on extreme poverty, especially issues of global health, economic development, and effective governance. Before that, from 2001 until 2007, he founded and managed the East Coast office of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. As director of foundation advocacy, he shaped and executed the Gates Foundation’s strategy and approach to advocacy in areas such as global health, poverty alleviation, and education reform.
Amb. Lane served in the Obama administration as assistant to the president and counselor to the White House chief of staff prior to his service in Rome. As the U.S. Representative, he promoted policy reforms in the areas of food security, agricultural development, poverty alleviation, development finance, and rule of law promotion.
In the 1990s, Amb. Lane held several appointments in the Clinton administration, including Executive Director of the White House National Economic Council and Chief of Staff to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
A native of Florida, Amb. Lane earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Virginia in political and social thought and a Master of Public Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.
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