Ridgway H. White

Ridgway White is president and CEO of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and chair of its board of trustees. He began his career at the Foundation as an intern in 2002 and was hired as a program assistant two years later. After working his way up through the program ranks, he served as Mott’s vice president for special projects and chair of its management working group from 2011 until he became president in January 2015. He was named CEO in November 2018 and chair of the board of trustees in December 2019.

He succeeded his father, William S. “Bill” White, who passed away in October 2019 after nearly five decades of leadership at the Foundation. In addition to his father, White has been preceded by only two other leaders of the Foundation: his great-grandfather and the institution’s founder, C.S. Mott, and his son, C.S. Harding Mott.

When White took the reins at Mott in 2015, the Flint water crisis was still unfolding. He led the Foundation’s approval of a $4 million grant to help the city reconnect to the Detroit water system and begin the process of bringing safe, clean water back to the community. He subsequently led the charge on the Foundation’s commitment in 2016 to provide up to $100 million over five years to help the city recover and rise from the crisis — a commitment that was fulfilled in just over four years.