Who

Saltzman is executive director of the Robin Hood Foundation, the hedge fund-heavy non-profit that supports education and anti-poverty programs in New York City.

Backstory

Raised on the Upper East Side, Saltzman attended Trinity and Brown and earned a master's in public health at Columbia before starting his career in the city's social service bureaucracy. As a staffer at the Department of Health, he worked with homeless families and on AIDS education programs and spent three years with the city's Board of Education. In 1989, Saltzman signed on as co-director of the Robin Hood Foundation, which had been established two years earlier by hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones, who later recruited pals Peter Borish and Glenn Dubin. (Saltzman's connection to the hedge funders: He was Dubin's brother-in-law at the time.) The foundation soon attracted attention for adopting a "venture philanthropy" approach to giving: Beneficiaries must perform against certain metrics to continue receiving funding and those that fail to meet the Foundation's guidelines are swiftly dropped from the roster. Since its inception, Robin Hood has dispensed some $500 million to hundreds of local initiatives, including soup kitchens, charter schools, job-training centers, and AIDS prevention programs.

Of note

One of the most high-profile charity groups in the city, Robin Hood may be best known for the long list of moguls with whom it's associated: The board includes Lloyd Blankfein, Steve Cohen, Dan Och, Richard Fuld, Jeff Immelt, Richard Chilton, Marie-Josée Kravis, Dirk Ziff, Scott Bommer, and Ken Langone, among many others. Saltzman has since expanded the board beyond the financial community, adding more celebrity glam to the mix with Gwyneth Paltrow, Diane Sawyer, and Tom Brokaw. But Robin Hood's glitzy annual gala remains one of Wall Street's biggest nights, and regularly raises more money than any other event during the season. (The 2006 soiree hauled in $48 million; some $71 million was raised in 2007.) A bevy of A-list stars perform (Beyoncé Knowles, Jay Z, the Rolling Stones) and attendees bid on extravagant auction items. Ron Perelman once paid for a hockey lesson from Wayne Gretzky; Harvey Weinstein auctioned off walk-on role in a Martin Scorsese movie; and Lachlan Murdoch auctioned a cruise around Sydney with him and dad, Rupert Murdoch. Naturally, the bidding is fierce. The chance to hang out with Matt Lauer at the 2008 Olympics fetched $2.2 million. Dinner for 10 cooked by Mario Batali raked in $1.3 million.

Controversy

Until 2007, the fund's millions resided in accounts managed by Paul Tudor Jones, Glenn Dubin, Steve Cohen, Eddie Lampert, and David Shaw, among others. When some suggested this amounted to a conflict of interest, Saltzman discontinued the practice.

Family ties

David's sister, Elizabeth Saltzman, married Glenn Dubin in 1987, a connection that proved useful to Saltzman in getting the job, although Dubin and his sister subsequently divorced. Elizabeth now works for Graydon Carter at Vanity Fair.

Personal

Saltzman is married to Elizabeth Doyle, who is active in philanthropic causes. The couple lives in a Central Park West apartment (Kevin Sheekey lives one floor up), and also has a home in East Hampton.

True story

Saltzman was roommates with John F. Kennedy Jr. when they were students at Brown. Saltzman later talked him into joining Robin Hood's board.