Meet the USC Board of Trustees’ 10 highest political donors

Annenberg Media sorted through FEC data to locate where the board’s federal donations were going.

USC’s Board of Trustees is made up of 39 voting members. These 39 members come from across the globe — from Los Angeles to Hong Kong. Predominantly CEOs, many of these voting members are among the richest people on the planet.

A handful of times each year, they convene to make some of the university’s most influential decisions. Today, many students couldn’t name a single board member.

In an interview with Annenberg Media, board Chair Suzanne Nora Johnson said that board members were generally selected based on their capacity to “put USC interests above everything else.”

“We want people to be trustees who are very philanthropically minded and who care a lot about USC,” Nora Johnson said. She and the other trustees expect each other to be politically active, because they want “people that are very of-the-world and understand what's going on.”

The board serves as the university’s governing body, overseeing financial management, long-term strategy and the selection of USC’s president. Mainly composed of prominent business leaders, philanthropists and alumni, the board wields significant influence over how the university sets priorities and allocates resources.

Nora Johnson said California law defines trustees’ responsibilities in strategy, succession and supervision rather than day-to-day management.

“The president and the administration run the place,” Nora Johnson said. “We don't run it. It's supposed to be oversight.”

While not as politically active as some of the other 42 non-voting trustees, the voting board collectively has made nearly $14 million in federal political donations since 1981.

Nora Johnson said they were “particularly sensitive if someone’s running for office” but that political affiliation was “not a discussion at the board.”

One board member, Vice Chair David Bohnett, wrote in a statement to Annenberg Media that he was “unaware of the full extent of the political ideologies” of the rest of the board.

To get a better idea of who USC’s board members are and where their interests lie, Annenberg Media sorted Federal Election Commission data on all board members.

These 10 donors have given the most.

David Bohnett

Rick Caruso

Marc Benioff

Leonard D. Schaeffer

Robert Bradway

Dominic Ng

Suzanne Nora Johnson

Robert Beyer

Jeffrey Smulyan

John Mork

$2,830,668

$1,778,534

$1,713,813

$1,589,203

$1,253,652

$827,993

$784,350

$701,450

$483,968

$324,125

Click below to read about each trustee and the donations they've made.

David Bohnett

Rick Caruso

Marc Benioff

Leonard D. Schaeffer

Robert Bradway

Dominic Ng

Suzanne Nora Johnson

Robert Beyer

Jeffrey Smulyan

John Mork

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © USC ANNENBERG MEDIA 2025

Reporting and writing by Lindsay Augustine, Milica Samardzic, Tamara Almoayed, Alex von Thaden, Nina Moothedath, Malik Gamble, John Millsap, Omar Mejia, Sasha Ryu, Reo, Malcolm Caminero

Coding by Nina Moothedath, Keilani Kozen, Jackson Mills, Katherine Ding, Chinelo Ogogor

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By Lindsay Augustine

David Bohnett

Photo by Lara Jo Regan, courtesy of David Bohnett

David Bohnett, the current vice chair of USC’s Board of Trustees, made more federal political donations than any other current board member.

Bohnett has contributed more than $2.8 million to political funds since 1999. The most he gave to an individual politician or cause was funding for former President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign, at about $400,000. He has also given significant contributions to other Democratic presidential campaigns — such as former Vice President Kamala Harris, Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns and Hillary Clinton’s senatorial and presidential campaigns.

To other individual Democratic politicians, he has given almost $300,000. He has also provided all 50 states’ Democratic fundraising programs more than $300,000 — including Washington, DC — although much of this was allocated to the Biden and Harris campaigns.

Bohnett has also donated significantly to LGBTQ+ rights organizations. The Gay and Lesbian Fund, a singular organization, received $88,500.

The rest of his donations have gone to general left-leaning PACs and organizations — about half of his total contributions.

Bohnett graduated from USC in 1978 with a bachelor’s in business administration. In 2022, Bohnett received an honorary doctorate from the school. After graduation, he went on to found a social networking site called GeoCities, which was acquired by Yahoo. He now invests in technology start-ups through a venture capital firm, Baroda Ventures.

“Mr. Bohnett has always been involved with businesses that empower individuals, improve lives, and build viable communities by connecting like-minded people,” Bohnett’s bio page for the David Bohnett Foundation states.

Bohnett has said his politics were shaped by his LGBTQ+ identity. He became active in politics and gay rights while getting his Master's of Business Administration at the University of Michigan, and continued that legacy after he graduated. He had a relationship with Rand Schrader, the first openly gay prosecutor under the Los Angeles city attorney. Schrader died at 48 during the AIDS crisis. This prompted Bohnett to start the David Bohnett Foundation, which focuses on fundraising social activism programs for LGBTQ+ rights, as well as animal rights and civil service.

“The Foundation came about in the wake of a decade of personal activism during the 1980s movement for LGBTQ rights, a time in my life defined by profound relationships, painful loss, and a deep commitment to social issues,” Bohnett wrote in a letter about the foundation’s 25-year report.

Bohnett is on the TIME100 Philanthropy 2025 list. According to TIME, Bohnett’s donations go beyond his political affiliations, with the largest single donation going to the LA County Museum of Art.

He also serves on additional boards to USC — including the aforementioned museum, LA Philharmonic Association, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Foundation for AIDS Research and LA World Affairs Council.

Although Rick Caruso is often thought of as the politically minded board member, running for Los Angeles mayor and being rumored as a possible future California governor candidate, Bohnett’s political inclinations are less public, but he said they are encouraged by “improving society through social activism.”

“This translates to supporting candidates of all political parties who advocate for policies that expand civic and community participation, protect individual rights and equality (including LGBTQ+ rights), advance safe and inclusive elections, reduce gun violence, and build opportunity through leadership development and access to cultural and educational resources,” Bohnett wrote in a statement to Annenberg Media.

In his statement, Bohnett wrote that he was “unaware of the full extent of the political ideologies” of the rest of the board. He wrote that his own politics were tempered by the “Trustee Code of Conduct” when it came to university dealings.

“I am grateful that the Board is comprised of members that bring a wide array of skills and experiences that leads to a robust exchange of perspectives in the Board room,” Bohnett’s statement read.

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By Milica Samardzic

Rick Caruso

Photo by Yannick Peterhans

When USC students walk through The Grove or past Caruso Catholic Center, they may not realize how much one man’s name and money run through the university’s story.

Over four decades, Rick Caruso has donated nearly $1.8 million to political candidates and committees, emerging as the second-most prolific individual donor on USC’s Board of Trustees. His career bridges the worlds of business, politics and philanthropy; the same circles that help shape the university’s most significant decisions.

An analysis of trustee donation data reviewed by Annenberg Media shows that while Caruso’s early political giving overwhelmingly supported Republican campaigns, his contributions in recent years have shifted decisively toward Democrats.

In the 1980s, Caruso began building what would become an empire in Southern California. As founder and CEO of Caruso — the firm behind The Grove, The Americana at Brand and Palisades Village — he turned shopping centers into polished civic hubs, blending luxury retail with public space.

His path to influence also ran through City Hall. Beginning in 1984, Caruso served five separate terms on the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Commission, holding the role at various points until 2001. He transitioned to the LA Police Commission where he served as commissioner until 2005.

During that period, he contributed heavily to Republican candidates and organizations, including George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign, the California Republican Party and the National Republican Congressional Committee.

By the 2010s, as LA moved leftward, Caruso’s donations began to cross party lines. Between 2013 and 2020, he gave roughly $440,000 split almost evenly between Republicans and Democrats.

It was also the decade his USC influence solidified. In 2018, Caruso became a voting member on the board and was soon named chair, stepping into leadership as the George Tyndall scandal erupted. It was a case in which a USC gynecologist was accused of sexually abusing patients for nearly 30 years, with LAPD investigators warning the number of potential victims could reach as high as 10,000.

Caruso vowed to usher in a new era of transparency, but many faculty, students and survivors later criticized his leadership, saying the board released limited information about its internal investigations and failed to deliver the openness he promised.

After joining the board, Caruso’s philanthropy expanded. In 2019, he and his wife donated $50 million to Pepperdine University’s School of Law, which now bears his name. Their giving to USC includes a $25 million endowment to Keck Medicine and support for the Caruso Catholic Center. In total, their contributions to USC exceed $50 million.

By 2022, Caruso stepped down as board chair to run for mayor of LA, a move that shifted his public identity from donor to candidate.

However, he officially registered as a Democrat in 2022, marking a public break from decades of Republican affiliation. His mayoral campaign centered on homelessness and public safety — pushing an emergency-response model that relied on rapidly increasing shelter beds and interim housing. Caruso said he would declare a State of Emergency on day one and aimed to move 30,000 unhoused people into temporary housing within 300 days, alongside expanding LAPD staffing and fighting corruption.

Since then, his political donations have overwhelmingly favored Democratic causes. His recent checks went to the Biden Victory Fund, the Harris Victory Fund, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and swing-state efforts like the Nevada Senate Victory Fund and the Tester Victory Fund in Montana.

In just four years, Caruso’s Democratic giving has surpassed $900,000, far more than his total Republican donations across the 1990s and 2000s combined. Although he ultimately lost the 2022 race to Karen Bass, his influence within the city and at USC continues to grow.

At USC, his name sits atop departments, scholarships and governance committees. Beyond campus, his donations span California politics and national campaigns alike.

Nora Johnson drew a distinction between voting trustees and honorary board members, noting that donors such as casino billionaire Miriam Adelson are “not voting trustees” and “don’t have sway” over board decisions. Caruso, by contrast, served as board chair and remains a voting trustee, giving him both a formal role in governance and an expansive record as a political and philanthropic donor.

Asked whether trustees’ political donations influence decisions on admissions, hiring or partnerships, Nora Johnson said they do not.

On Caruso specifically, Nora Johnson said his political giving is “not relevant at the board level at all” and argued that having trustees who are politically active across parties helps USC stay connected to the broader community.

Across nearly 40 years of records, Caruso’s giving totals about $1.8 million: roughly two-thirds to Democrats, one-quarter to Republicans, and the remainder to bipartisan or issue-based committees.

Caruso did not respond to requests for comment.

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By Tamara Almoayed

Marc Benioff

Photo courtesy of the World Economic Forum

To many, Marc Benioff is best known for his role as the founder of Salesforce. To others, he is the man who owns Time Magazine.

Among the 500 richest people in the world, Benioff has a net worth of roughly $10 billion, according to Bloomberg. Though much of this money has gone toward his various private investments, most of his economic contributions serve as investments in healthcare and education.

The Benioffs have long had a history in donations, specifically in the Bay Area, where Marc is from. He and his wife, Lynne, donated $100 million to UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals toward the expansion of pediatric care in October, according to a Salesforce news release. It was around then that Salesforce announced $39 million in support to public education, local children’s hospitals and education non-profits.

The combined contributions of Salesforce and the Benioffs to healthcare and education total more than $1 billion dollars.

“As a fourth-generation San Franciscan, I’ve always believed in our responsibility to invest deeply in our local community,” Benioff wrote in the October news release. “The San Francisco Bay Area is the AI capital of the world. With that leadership comes a responsibility not only to innovate, but to secure the future of our community – ensuring that every child has access to world-class healthcare, safe and welcoming public parks and spaces, and a great education to flourish in the AI era.”

Beyond his varied philanthropic work, Benioff is also becoming an increasingly visible political voice.

An analysis of Federal Election Commission data done by Annenberg Media found that Benioff has been an active contributor to federal political action committees for over two decades.

Though his early donations leaned more Republican — including contributions to the George W. Bush and John McCain presidential campaigns — in recent years, his giving aligned more with that of Democratic political action committees. By 2013, his contributions shifted completely — that year he donated $25,000 to the Ready for Hillary campaign ahead of her 2016 run for president.

His apparent political stance took a turn when he publicly announced his support for President Donald Trump in October.

“I fully support the president,” Benioff said in an interview with The New York Times. “I think he’s doing a great job.”

A month prior, Benioff was seated across from Trump at a state dinner hosted by King Charles at Windsor Castle — an honor Benioff says he commemorated by telling the president how “grateful [he is] for everything he’s doing.”

Annenberg Media did not find any federal records or donations from Benioff to Trump or Trump-aligned PACs.

Since his purchase of Time Magazine in September 2018, Benioff has said he won't publicly endorse or contribute to presidential candidates.

In an interview with Axios in January, Benioff said, “We've worked with five or six presidents — I have personally — and different administrations.”

“Presidents change, administrations change, we don't change,” Benioff said. “We have the same value system that we've always had.”

Though the Bay Area has seen a rise in moderate voters, Trump remains a widely disliked figure within the region. In fact, 77% of Bay Area voters disapproved of Trump as of June, according to a Public Policy Institute of California poll.

In October, the CEO also suggested that the National Guard should be deployed for public safety in San Francisco in an interview with The New York Times.

“We don’t have enough cops, so if they can be cops, I’m all for it,” Benioff said.

Despite Benioff walking back his statement — a week later — this made national headlines, raising the question of how involved a private sector leader should be in public policy. Benioff’s comment was also met with criticism from political figures, including San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie and District Attorney Brooke Jenkins.

Benioff has been a member of USC’s board since 2010. Beyond his position on the board, Benioff is also one of the university’s most prolific individual benefactors. In 2016, he donated $20 million to the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine of USC to support research and treatment innovations to fight cancer.

Benioff did not provide a response by publication time.

Editor’s Note: This article was edited Dec. 4, 2025, at 2:23 p.m. to include additional context regarding Benioff’s lack of endorsement of presidential candidates.

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By Alex von Thaden

USC students may be familiar with the name Schaeffer through the Leonard D. Schaeffer Institute for Public Policy and Government Service — the result of a new $59 million donation.

Previously, the trustee established the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics, as well as the Leonard D. Schaeffer Fellows in Government Service program. Both are currently consolidated under the new institute and reside at USC’s Capital Campus.

Schaeffer is a voting member of USC’s Board of Trustees, as well as the current chairman of the USC Health System Board. Preceded by inaugural chair Max Nikias — who also served as USC’s 11th president — the Keck position was passed to Schaeffer once Nikias stepped down from both roles in 2018.

Born in 1945, Schaeffer grew up in Evanston, Illinois. He completed high school in 1963 and donated $7 million to the Evanston Township High School Board of Education just last year. He also graduated from Princeton University with a degree in economics.

In college, he served as the president of the Colonial Club — one of Princeton’s eating clubs. Under his term in 1969, Colonial was the first to go co-ed and abandon the “bicker” process, which is essentially Greek rush for Princeton’s eating clubs. Schaeffer also did a kick line on What’s My Line? thanks to his membership with the Triangle Club, a group of student writers and performers of original musical comedy.

His interest in government and policy grew as he earned a summer internship with Democratic Sen. Paul Douglas of Illinois. This opportunity served as a foundation for his political beliefs. Douglas was best known as a proponent for fiscal discipline, Truman’s Fair Deal and the civil rights movement — which could explain Schaeffer’s track record of contributing to almost exclusively left-leaning committees.

By 2024, Schaeffer had donated $87,300 to the Harris Victory Fund, according to an Annenberg Media analysis of federal political contributions.

However, small exceptions remain. Besides supporting a couple Republican senators between 1997 and 2015, he also contributed a little over $2,500 to both George W. Bush presidential campaigns in 2000 and 2004. This overlapped with his time as chairman and CEO of Wellpoint — a leading health insurance company.

During this time, Schaeffer and Wellpoint received countless accolades. He was dubbed as one of the “Top 25 Managers of the Year” by BusinessWeek magazine and one of the “50 Best CEOs in America” by Worth magazine.

His C-suite experience didn’t start with Wellpoint. Schaeffer was also the president and CEO of Group Health, Inc. of Minnesota; COO of the Student Loan Marketing Association; and a vice president at Citibank. Currently, Shaeffer is also a senior advisor to the private equity firm Starr Investment Holdings.

Schaeffer’s previous work experience helps explain what made him a successful leader.

In the public sector, he served as the administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration, managing the Medicare and Medicaid programs. That experience was complemented by his assistant secretary role for management and budget of the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

At the state level in Illinois, he held positions such as the director of the Bureau of the Budget, the chairman of the Capital Development Board, and deputy director for management at the Illinois Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities. He is also on the board of RAND and Brookings.

“I got rich by accident,” he said in an article on a Princeton ‘69 website. Schaeffer accepted stock options in place of a large salary, which he only sold once he retired from his position as CEO of Wellpoint.

This explains the trustee’s ability to make $59 million donations to create centers like the Leonard D. Schaeffer Institute. While active in politics — as evidenced by his professional background and more than $1.5 million in political contributions — his priorities clearly lie in education.

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By Nina Moothedath

Robert Bradway

Photo courtesy of Amgen, Inc.

USC trustee Robert Bradway is CEO and chairman of the biopharmaceutical and biotechnology company Amgen. Bradway led the company as it made strides in treatments for heart disease, inflammation and more, earning one of the industry’s highest salaries.

With $9.6 billion in revenue in its third quarter alone, Amgen is one of 30 companies that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average — a distinction it has held since 2020. Earlier this month, a study showed that Amgen’s newest cholesterol drug Repatha reduced risk of a first heart attack by 36%.

“Heart disease is the leading challenge that we face on the planet,” Bradway said at Semafor's World Economy Summit in April.

Bradway climbed the ranks from vice president of operations strategy to chief financial officer to president and COO from 2006 to 2012. Bradway became CEO in 2012 and chairman in 2013.

Being at the head of Amgen has also brought Bradway criticism. In 2020, he was one of several executives called before the House Oversight Committee as part of an investigation into the raising of drug prices. He also was questioned about his high salary.

The committee’s report referenced Bradway’s total compensation of nearly $18.6 million in 2018, but as of 2024 his compensation rose to $24.4 million — with the majority both years being in equity holdings — according to company filings. In 2024, Bradway’s salary alone was $1.84 million.

“I don't have any direct input to my compensation,” Bradway said at the 2020 hearing. “That is derived by the board, and it is forwarded to a vote of the shareholders, who overwhelmingly supported the compensation package for me and the other main executive officers … Our compensation is consistent with competitive positions at other companies like ours.”

In past interviews, Bradway has credited tax cuts put in place during the first Trump presidency with supporting Amgen’s ability to fund domestic manufacturing and research and development. Since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, Amgen reports having invested $5 billion in direct capital expenditures in the United States.

Some of these expansions, including a $650 million facility in California and $900 million facility in Ohio, took place earlier this year amid threatened tariffs by the Trump administration on imported pharmaceuticals.

Bradway’s personal donations increased heading into the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. That said, his highest total for donations in a single year was $203,892 in 2018.

Across the past decade, his largest yearly donations to a cause were to Former House Speaker Paul Ryan’s joint fundraising committee for House Republicans in 2017 and Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s joint fundraising committee in 2020. Since becoming a trustee, approximately $226,100 of Bradway’s donations have gone to Democrats, with $755,000 to Republicans.

Bradway has also consistently donated between $4,000 and $5,000 each year for the past decade to the Amgen Political Action Committee. From January 1 to June 30, 2025, the bipartisan PAC donated $161,000 to Democrats and $328,500 to Republicans. Like others in its industry, Amgen has also donated to presidential inaugurations, including 2017, 2021 and 2025.

“The Amgen PAC supports candidates from both parties and decisions regarding who the PAC supports are made with Amgen's best interests in mind and without regard for the personal political preferences of members of Amgen's Board of Directors or PAC Board, executives or GGA&P staff,” Amgen’s PAC page states.

Bradway graduated from Amherst College with a bachelor’s degree in biology in 1985 and from Harvard University in 1990 with a master’s degree in business administration. Before his executive roles at Amgen, he worked for 21 years at Morgan Stanley, often based out of London.

Bradway was elected to the USC Board of Trustees in 2014, with former USC President Max Nikias highlighting Bradways’ experience.

“Bob Bradway stands among our nation’s leading executives in the field of biotechnology,” Nikias told USC Today at the time. “Under his visionary guidance, Amgen has significantly expanded its reach, while continuing to provide tremendously innovative therapies that restore health and save lives.”

Aside from his roles at USC and Amgen, Bradway serves on several roundtables and boards. Continuing his involvement in the biopharmaceutical field, he’s the chairman of the CEO Roundtable on Cancer and a member of the American Heart Association CEO Roundtable. He also holds a position on the Board of Fellows for Stanford Medicine and has been a director on the board of Boeing since 2016.

To recognize his contributions to his field he received an honorary doctorate in applied life sciences from Keck Graduate Institute, which is part of the Claremont Colleges, where he delivered a commencement speech in 2016.

“In a highly technical industry … it's easy to get absorbed in the details and to lose the forest for the trees,” Bradway said in his speech. “But make no mistake, because the big picture is very clear, and it's that the biotech revolution is just getting started.”

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By Malik Gamble

Dominic Ng

Photo courtesy of UnitedWayLA

In 2024, the Los Angeles Times named East West Bank CEO Dominic Ng to its “L.A. Influential” list, a collection of people who have made a considerable impact on the city.

In that article, Elise Buik, a chief executive of the United Way of Greater LA, said [Ng’s “leadership has transformed the bank, transformed philanthropy, and what business leadership looks like in LA.”

In 2001, Ng led a major United Way of Greater Los Angeles funding campaign that raised $66 million for low-income communities.

Research shows Ng has gifted at least $14 million to East Asian art and culture exhibitions in institutions across California, such as the Huntington Library in LA and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.

He helped to fundraise more than $600,000 for the USC Pacific Asia Museum. The museum honored him during its 37th annual Festival of the Autumn Moon Gala held in 2014, shortly after Ng’s appointment to USC’s Board of Trustees.

Ng was drawn to join the university due to its “strong and distinctive Trojan Family culture,” a representative from East West Bank wrote in a statement to Annenberg Media. USC’s strong international connections also resonated with Ng’s “global perspective,” his representative said.

Since joining the Board of Trustees, he has gifted money to Keck, the Alumni Association, the USC Arcadia Hospital and other programs. He also contributed to the renovation of the LA Memorial Coliseum.

Ng has served on the board for over a decade. Currently, he is part of the finance and campus planning committees.

Born in 1959 in Hong Kong to a family that fled the Chinese Communist Revolution of 1949, Ng’s family was initially impoverished. The first apartment he remembers growing up in was no bigger than a few hundred square feet, he told the LA Business Journal.

As his family’s fortunes improved, he immigrated to the United States in 1977 to study at the University of Houston. He changed majors twice before eventually graduating in 1980 with a bachelor’s in business administration.

After graduating, he worked as a public accountant for the professional services network Deloitte and later became the president of Seyen Investment Inc. In 1992, after arranging East West Bank’s purchase, he became its chief executive.

Under his leadership, East West Bank pivoted to a commercial bank model, catering to U.S. clients interested in Asian business clientele. “I felt like I had a bigger vision: that we, East West Bank, are going to be the financial bridge between the East and the West,” Ng said in an interview with the LA Business Journal.

East West Bank has since expanded into other sectors, such as financing the entertainment industry and philanthropic efforts around SoCal.

Since 2023, it has been ranked the top-performing bank in its asset size by Bank Director. It is the largest publicly traded bank headquartered in Southern California. As of 2025, its total assets are worth $78.1 billion.

Ng has gone on to serve on the boards of Mattel Inc. and STX Entertainment. From 2011 to 2014, he was a chairman of the Committee of 100, an organization of prominent Chinese Americans that aims to “advance constructive relations between the U.S. and Greater China,” according to their website.

Then-President Joe Biden appointed Ng as chair of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation’s Business Advisory Council in 2023. ABAC, a sub-body of APEC, was formed to give APEC leaders the business perspective of specific economic sectors.

Ng has given almost $900,000 in political donations since 1992, almost all of which has gone wholly to Democratic organizations. He donated $100,000 to the Biden Victory Fund PAC in 2020, and $250,000 to the Harris Victory Fund PAC in 2024.

“The global landscape continues to be tremendously disrupted – standing still means going backwards,” Ng said at the 2023 APEC CEO summit. “It has never been more important to work on building greater resilience for our businesses, better living standards for our communities, and a sustainable future.”

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By John Millsap

Suzanne Nora Johnson

Photo courtesy of the World Economic Forum

Suzanne Nora Johnson is the chair of the Board of Trustees. She succeeded Rick Caruso in 2022, becoming the first woman to hold the position.

Nora Johnson graduated from USC with a bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies in 1979 and joined Goldman Sachs in 1985. She eventually served as vice chairwoman of the bank until 2007.

After Goldman Sachs became publicly traded in 1999, Nora Johnson belonged to a large, elite group of executives who held 60% of the bank’s shares and controlled company strategy through block-voting. The group was exclusive: New partners were chosen every two years through an internal vetting process. However, most executives, including Nora Johnson, had left the bank by 2011.

Nora Johnson is a board member of Pfizer, Inc. and has donated a total of $40,000 to its political action committee. Nora Johnson is also the board chair of Intuit Inc., the co-chair on the Board of Trustees of The Brookings Institution and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

In the 2020 presidential election, Nora Johnson donated over $90,000 to then former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign. Nora Johnson did not donate to former Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, but did contribute $5,400 to Harris’ Senate campaign during the 2016 primary and general elections.

Nora Johnson has not donated to any Republican campaigns or PACs.

When asked by Annenberg Media what inspired her political affiliations, Nora Johnson said she thinks it’s an “obligation of living in a democracy” to be informed and to engage.

“Sometimes when you meet with people, you feel compelled to help them and to support their campaigns or their PACs,” Nora Johnson said. “Other times you don't, or you may meet them and say, ‘Okay, well maybe down the road I will.’”

Nora Johnson said that her political affiliations don’t interfere with maintaining neutrality during board decisions, and the legal obligations for being a fiduciary to the university make the boundaries clear.

“Why I'm a fiduciary for USC is that I believe the pillars of the values here are so consistent and consonant with the way I think about things,” Nora Johnson said. She also said that she would decline to participate as a trustee if her belief system “was in conflict with being a fiduciary for USC.”

Nora Johnson donated $2,700 to the 2018 Senate campaign for the former United States Secretary of Agriculture, Mike Espy, in Mississippi — despite residing outside of the state.

“I happen to also be a citizen of California and Los Angeles, but I'm a citizen of the United States of America,” Nora Johnson said. “You have an obligation, particularly if you're affiliated with institutions like USC, to know what is going on in the rest of the country and interacting with people who are making decisions that affect you and me, no matter where we live in the country.”

Not all of USC’s board members align with Nora Johnson’s political beliefs. Namely, Miriam Adelson, a former voting member and now honorary trustee, has donated $170 million to President Donald Trump’s three election campaigns. When asked if political affiliations affect how board members interact with one another, Nora Johnson said she likes the idea of gathering board members “who have different points of view.”

“As long as around a board table, you can have a discussion with different points of view, that's a good thing, but it doesn't really enter into, ultimately, how you make a decision as a board,” Nora Johnson said.

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By Malik Gamble

Robert Beyer first came to USC as part of the class of 1981, eventually graduating with a bachelor’s in business administration. While he had a brief stint as a Bruin, earning his master’s from UCLA in 1983, he remained part of the Trojan family for the rest of his career.

Beyer served as part of Dornsife’s Board of Councillors for over two decades before being asked to join the university’s Board of Trustees in late 2021.

“Beyer is a devoted Trojan and talented businessperson, and his global perspective makes him a valuable addition to our Board of Trustees,” then-Chair Rick Caruso said for USC Today.

Prior to becoming a trustee, Beyer worked in the investment and finance industries. He was a managing director in capital markets at multinational investment bank Drexel Burnham Lambert, and later helped manage Drexel’s closing in 1990 after it was forced to file for bankruptcy to avoid being seized by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Alongside former Drexel employees Jean-Marc Chapus and billionaire Mark Attanasio, Beyer co-founded investment management firm Crescent Capital Group in 1991.

Crescent was later bought out by asset management firm TCW Group in 1995, with Beyer later serving as TCW’s CEO from 2005 to 2009. TCW Group is one of the top 100 management firms, administering nearly $200 billion in assets as of 2025. The company “achieved record assets under [his] management,” according to Beyer’s own profile.

Beyer has also served as a director for Kroger, Allstate and LiveVox Holdings, an AI-driven contact center platform. He sat on the boards of the Providence Saint John’s Health Center, Los Angeles World Airports and the LA City Employees Retirement System.

Currently, Beyer is chairman of Charpal Investments LLC — a personal investment and holding company founded by him in 2009 — and an independent director of Jefferies Group LLC, an investment services corporation worth over $440 billion.

With all of his business experience, Beyer serves on the USC Board of Trustee’s investment committee, as well as co-chair of the finance and campus planning committee.

“I’ve witnessed the results of intelligent investments by the university administration in the increased quality of the research and teaching and the reputation that the college enjoys today,” Beyer said for Dornsife.

Beyer has made “literally over a hundred varied donations to the university,” according to a statement he made to Annenberg Media. The most notable of which is the Robert D. Beyer ‘81 Early Career Chair in Natural Sciences, an endowed chair currently held by assistant professor of physics and astronomy Peter Chung.

This interest in education extends beyond USC, with Beyer being a founding member of UCLA’s Fink Center for Finance advisory board, and a trustee for the Harvard-Westlake School.

Since 1987, Beyer has made over $700,000 in political donations to various candidates. His largest donations have been to the Republican Party.

He has donated the most money to Mitt Romney, gifting the Republican politician over $150,000 throughout his 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns, as well as his 2018 Senate campaign in Utah.

However, he also donated $2,300 to then-Sen. Barack Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign.

Beyer’s most recent donations were for Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign, giving $4,000 to the candidate.

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By Omar Mejia

Jeffrey Smulyan, born in 1947, graduated cum laude from USC in 1972 with a bachelor’s in history and telecommunications. He later earned a law degree from the Gould School of Law. Smulyan joined the Board of Trustees out of his desire to serve his alma mater in various positions.

Smulyan is the founder and CEO of Emmis Communications, an investment company based in Indianapolis that Smulyan founded in 1979. Emmis, which means “truth” in Hebrew, sells its sales and marketing skills to expand businesses in exchange for equity. Emmis invests in already established businesses with growing revenue between $5 million to $100 million. Its individual investments are in the $10 million to $100 million range.

Emmis mainly focuses on investing in radio stations but also works with media, entertainment and sports companies. Notable organizations include the Seattle Mariners, Hot 97 and Lencore. Emmis claims it is committed to upholding diversity and equity by, according to the “Our Philosophy” section of their website, intentfully hiring a racially diverse staff, collaborating with organizations that serve minority groups, and cultivating a work environment where open discussions are promoted.

Smulyan began Emmis investment in Anzu, an Israeli video game company, in June 2023, four months before Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel and Israel’s war in Gaza began. Smulyan himself is Jewish.

President Bill Clinton in 1994 named him as an ambassador to head the United States Delegation to the Plenipotentiary Conference of the International Telecommunications Union. Smulyan's Annenberg biography page, as a member of the Board of Councillors, says he helped negotiate a landmark agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, but the specific agreement is not described.

Smulyan told Annenberg Media that his role as a U.S. Ambassador took place after the Oslo Accords, a series of signed agreements between Israel and PLO aimed at achieving long-term peace between the two entities.

Every four years, the International Telecommunication Union, an agency of the United Nations with the purpose of addressing global information and communication technologies issues, hosts a global conference. According to Smulyan, 1994 was a year when the Arab nations wanted to get a telecommunications structure for Palestinian territories in exchange for recognizing Israel as a state for the first time. Smulyan says he was the main ambassador in charge of leading the U.S. delegation to the 1994 ITU Plenipotentiary Conference.

Smulyan has invested thousands of dollars in the political campaigns of multiple Democratic politicians in Indiana, including Reps. Frank Mvran Jr. and Andre Carson.

In 2011, Smulyan was donating to Carson and other Democrats while at the same time donating to multiple pro-Israel Republican candidates such as Florida Rep. Gus Bilirakis and Indiana Rep. Susan Brooks. Bilirakis and Brooks vocally supported Israel before and after the 2023 Hamas attacks.

These past 40 years, Smulyan has consistently jumped between donating to the campaigns of Democrats and Republicans. His support emphasizes liberal policy for issues in the U.S. and pro-Israel policy in U.S. relations between Israel and Palestinian territory. Smulyan says he is aware of his donations and that they are a reflection of his values.

For the past 40 years Smulyan has also consistently donated to the National Association of Broadcasters Television and Radio Political Action Committee, a committee of the National Association of Broadcasters based in Washington, DC.

Between 2023 and 2024, the NABPAC raised more than $2.5 million. Of that money raised, over four-fifths came from individual donors. Thirty percent of the NABPAC’s money spent went to Democrats, while 51% of the money spent went to Republicans.

Smulyan lives in the suburbs of Indianapolis with his wife and three children.

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By Sasha Ryu

In 1972, John Mork quit his job at one of the largest fossil fuel corporations in the country to take up wildcatting: a high risk, high reward profession that involves digging exploratory oil wells in untested territories. For years, he and his wife, Julie, lived in a trailer, struggling to make ends meet. Then, in 1976, their luck finally took a turn, and Mork discovered 50 billion cubic feet of gas in the Northeast Benson Field.

After Mork made his historic strike, his company — Energy Corporation of America — became one of the top oil and gas operations in the United States. By 2011, Forbes estimated that ECA generated approximately $200 million in revenue a year. However, even as Mork’s business continued to grow, he made it a point to stay out of the spotlight.

For decades, almost nobody knew who Mork was. That changed in 2011, when Mork made a $110 million donation to his alma mater, USC. When the news came out, people were shocked: A man who'd been virtually invisible for the better part of four decades was suddenly the 10th most generous philanthropist in America.

Although Mork’s donation made his name synonymous with the university’s scholarship programs, education isn’t the only thing his fortune funds. For decades, he’s been a donor to numerous political campaigns.

Between 1982 and 2023, Mork donated nearly $280,000 to dozens of conservative PACs and politicians. During this time, Mork also donated $44,500 to moderate Democratic candidates. Neither amount comes close to the $110 million Mork donated to the university in 2011 or the $15 million he gave USC in 2005. Still, Mork’s donations reveal a clear pattern: He backs politicians who are known to support deregulation in the oil and gas industry.

Political Giving

Mork has donated to congressional candidates across 12 different states, but he’s given the most to campaigns in Colorado and West Virginia — the two states where his company, Energy Corporation of America, was headquartered.

Over the past 40 years, Mork has donated to West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito more times than any other candidate. Capito, a Republican lawmaker who won her first congressional race in 2001, has been one of Mork’s friends since the mid-1980s.

In a 2014 article by the Republic Report, a spokesperson from Energy Corporation of America acknowledged Mork’s personal relationship with Capito, but stated that the company’s contact with the congresswoman’s office was “fairly limited in nature.”

Capito, however, had just spoken at a 2013 celebration in honor of ECA opening its new office in Charleston. According to his LinkedIn profile, Capito’s son, Arch Moore Capito, had also been working for Mork since 2011 as ECA’s in-house counsel. During his time at the company, ECA came under fire for breaking numerous environmental protection and contract laws.

After an investigation found violations at 17 of the company’s unconventional well sites, ECA had to pay the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection $1.7 million in fines. According to the DEP, some of the company’s violations included “failure to properly contain fluids in onsite pits” and “unauthorized discharge of industrial waste into groundwater.”

Outside of his longstanding support for Capito, Mork made the second highest number of individual donations to the former Democratic Sen. of West Virginia, Joe Manchin. Like Capito, as well as the numerous other candidates Mork has backed over the years, Manchin has been a strong supporter of “energy independence” throughout his political career.

Since 1995, Mork has only supported three Republican presidential candidates: William Phillip Gramm, George W. Bush and Mitt Romney. Mork hasn’t made a direct donation to a presidential candidate since 2012, when he gave $57,500 in direct donations to Romney’s second failed presidential bid.

Creating political influence from education philanthropy

Compared to a board member like Miriam Adelson, who’s donated $170 million to Donald Trump alone, Mork’s political contributions might seem miniscule. However, Mork’s influence on the country’s politics becomes much more significant if the impact of his $125 million in donations to the university are taken into consideration.

Today, the university’s Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the Viterbi School of Engineering bears the Mork family name. On its website, the department highlights its research on “sustainable energy generation.”

Although some might associate sustainable energy with windmills or solar panels, Mork, at least, seems to consider fossil fuels as an eco-friendly resource. However, his reasoning appears to be flawed.

In a 2015 interview, Mork told USC’s Viterbi School Magazine: “Never in the history of mankind has any resource been developed with less impact on the environment than oil and gas through hydraulic fracturing.”

Mork went on to assert that fracking impacted about “1 percent or less” of harvested land.

Both of these claims are incorrect.

Although natural gas may produce fewer pollutants than coal or oil, it’s far from the least harmful energy resource in the world. Wind energy, for example, produces around 11 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour while natural gas produces approximately 465 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour.

Natural gas, in other words, has a carbon footprint more than 40 times larger than wind.

The extraction, processing and transportation of natural gas also releases methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. According to the UN Environment Programme, methane is about 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, which significantly undermines the climate benefits of using natural gas.

Mork’s statements about the impact of fracking on harvested land are also flawed. Numerous studies contradict the claim that fracking impacts 1 percent or less of harvested land. Surface impact alone also fails to account for the numerous other ways fracking affects its surrounding environment, such as groundwater contamination, air pollution and induced seismicity.

Although the national and global scientific community has come to a general consensus on the harms of natural gas production, the university’s research on the practice seems to consistently echo Mork’s questionable claims.

One paper by USC research professor Fred Aminzadeh, for example, stated that “both hydraulic fracturing and the underground disposal of produced waters from oil and natural gas operations are proven to be safe and environmentally reliable” — a conclusion that conflicts with findings from the country’s leading research institutions, such as Yale and Duke, as well as numerous EPA studies.

Outside of Aminzadeh’s paper, the university has put out other studies and reports that seem to frame natural gas production as environmentally friendly.

In 2014, for instance, the Induced Seismicity Consortium at USC presented a draft report, claiming that there was “no evidence of water contamination due to hydraulic fracturing in California.”

Later, in 2018, the university highlighted a study conducted by assistant professor Kelly Sanders, which found that, “Although oil and natural gas consume large volumes of water … their total freshwater consumption is relatively low.”

Community activists from organizations like DivestSC and the Environmental Student Assembly have long criticized the university’s financial ties to the fossil fuel industry, highlighting the potential conflict of interest created by receiving sustainability research funding from oil and gas executives.

In 2021, after students led a years-long pressure campaign to cut ties with fossil fuel corporations, the Investment Committee on the USC Board of Trustees voted to stop any future investments in fossil fuels and to liquidate its existing fossil fuel investments over the next several years.

“Going forward, our new investment policies reinforce USC’s commitment to generate strong returns while also upholding USC’s values, including sustainability,” said Amy Diamond, USC’s chief investment officer, in a statement about the decision.

While the statement acknowledged that supporting fossil fuel corporations did not align with the university’s sustainability values, it did not pledge to address the funding USC continues to receive from oil companies and executives.

Leadership on the Board of Trustees

In 2013, Mork became the chair of the USC Board of Trustees. He took the position despite the fact that he would need to remain in Colorado to lead his Denver-based corporation.

In 2018, just weeks before Mork was about to complete his five-year term as chairman, numerous alumni came forward and accused the university of covering up decades of sexual abuse by campus gynecologist George Tyndall.

A report by the Los Angeles Times revealed that the university had allowed Tyndall to continue treating students for years despite complaints about his behavior, then brokered a secret deal that let him resign with a financial payout. The report also revealed that, when Tyndall left USC, the university did not report the evidence of Tyndall’s alleged abuse to the Medical Board. The university also did not reach out to notify any of Tyndall’s former patients.

The scandal prompted hundreds of faculty members and thousands of students to call for the resignation of then-President Max Nikias — Mork’s long-time friend.

Mork became one of the only people at the university to stand by Nikias. In a statement to the USC community, Mork wrote that the Board had, “full confidence in the leadership, ethics and values” of Nikias, and was certain that Nikias would “successfully guide our community forward.”

Just three days after the Board released its statement, Nikias was forced to step down.

Even after Nikias left the university in disgrace, he and Mork remained connected at their shared venture: EnerG-ID Solutions Corporation, which uses rapid DNA analysis to solve problems in the hydrocarbon industry. According to the company's leadership page, Nikias serves as the company’s chairman and Mork serves as chief executive officer.

Mork, now 87, declined to comment on his political giving or his leadership on the board.

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