Board and Staff

Nicholas L.D. Firth

President

Nicholas Firth has served as the President of the Jean and Louis Dreyfus Foundation since 1992.

For over 40 years Nick pursued a career in music publishing in the United States and England. From 1987-2007 he served as Chairman & CEO of BMG Music Publishing, the world’s third-largest music publisher – with 34 offices in 24 countries.

Prior to that he was President of Chappell International, then the world’s largest international music publisher. He also led an LBO, and subsequent sale of leading US theatrical licensing company Music Theatre International. In 2003 he was honored by the Songwriters Hall of Fame with the Abe Olman Publisher Award, and in 2006 he received the Bertelsmann AG Lifetime Achievement Entrepreneurial Award.

Nick currently serves on the boards of The College of Performing Arts and Mannes College of Music (New School) and The Mianus River Gorge Preserve. He was a long-time Board Member of ASCAP and the National Music Publishers Association.

In 2021 he established the Edmée Firth Fund for Research in Ovarian Cancer (EFFROC) in the memory of his late wife and prior Executive Director of the Jean and Louis Dreyfus Foundation.

Since his retirement, Nick has produced and sung in 15 shows with SIX OF CLUBS – a group of six friends who perform the songs of the Great American Songbook.

He attended McGill University and Harvard Business School and resides in Bedford, New York and Provence in France.

Katherine V. Firth

Vice President & Treasurer

Katie Firth was born in New York City and raised and educated in London, returning to the US to attend Williams College from which she graduated magna cum laude with a degree in Political Science and Theatre. Since then she has worked as an actor predominantly in New York, but also in regional theaters around the country. She is a member of The Actors Center, a resident workshop company devoted to artistic development and practice. She also works in the fields of voice-over and audiobooks. Katie has served on advisory boards and committees for several nonprofit institutions in New York City, predominantly focused on the arts and children’s issues, as well as teaching arts and literacy in underserved communities She lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with her husband and son.

Winthrop Rutherfurd, Jr.

Secretary

A graduate of Princeton University and the University of Virginia Law School, Winthrop Rutherford, Jr. has worked at the law firm White & Case LLP since 1969, and became a partner of the firm in 1976, specializing in trusts and estates. He advised not only individuals and families but a number of charitable organizations and trusts.

Win and his wife Mary are life-long residents of Manhattan. In addition to serving on the board of the Jean and Louis Dreyfus Foundation, Win is on the board of the Fresh Air Fund, is a Managing Director of the Metropolitan Opera, and serves on the boards of numerous other charitable foundations.

Win is a very active amateur singer who has played numerous principal roles with the Blue Hill Troupe, which puts on Gilbert & Sullivan operettas for charity. He is also a member of the Six of Clubs, a small singing group that presents concerts of songs written by great American composers.

Jonathan Bank

Board Member

Jonathan Bank has been the artistic director of Mint Theater Company since 1995, where he has unearthed and produced about 70 lost or neglected plays, some of which he has also directed. Under Bank’s leadership the Mint has earned an international reputation as the source for high-quality revivals of forgotten works. 

Jonathan earned his M.F.A. from Case Western Reserve University in his hometown of Cleveland, OH. 

Karen L. Rosa

Board Member

Karen Rosa retired at the end of December 2018 as Vice President and Executive Director of the Altman Foundation, a private, independent foundation awarding grants in New York City in four main program areas:  education; health; strengthening communities; and community engagement, youth development, and the arts.

Prior to joining Altman in 1986, Karen served as a consultant to The Rockefeller Foundation’s Trustee Task Force on Development, and before that worked for eleven years for Dominique de Menil, a remarkable art collector and philanthropist in Houston, New York, and Paris. With an art history degree from Barnard College, Karen started out in the museum end of Mrs. de Menil’s activities and moved over time to assisting Mrs. de Menil with her international work in human rights, ecumenism, and social justice.

Karen is a former board chair of Philanthropy New York. Currently a Trustee of the Jean and Louis Dreyfus Foundation, she also served for many years as a member of the Board of Directors of the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas.

Carrie Zimpritch Michaelis

Board Member

Carrie Michaelis is a Private Client and Trusts and Estates attorney with the firm of Goulston & Storrs where she prepares customized wills and counsels fiducieries on estate and trust administration, and helps clients structure charitable giving strategies.

Admitted to the Bar in both New York and Connecticut, Carrie received her B.A. from Duke University, and her J.D. from the Duke School of Law. She has served multiple terms on the Trusts, Estates, and Surrogate’s Court Committee and Estate and Gift Tax Committee of the New York City Bar Association, and is a member of the Estate Planning Council of New York.

Carrie is involved with the planning and support of the Gabriel Zimpritch Poetry Symposium, an annual poetry education workshop held in her hometown of Cape Elizabeth, Maine.