Susan L. Solomon

Susan L. Solomon (born 1951) is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of The New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF), which is located in Manhattan.^[1] A long-time American healthcare advocate, Solomon works to advance stem cell research to quicken the pace of medical discovery to find treatments or cures to intractable diseases.

Early life

Solomon, the daughter of a pianist and the co-founder of Vanguard Records, grew up in New York City.^[2] She graduated from New York University, and she received her JD from Rutgers University School of Law,^[3] where she was an editor of the Law Review. She then worked as an attorney at Debevoise & Plimpton.^[4]

Career

Solomon spent much of her career building businesses. She established and ran Solomon Partners LLC to provide strategic management consulting to corporations, cultural institutions, foundations and non-profit organizations, and she was the founding Chief Executive Officer of Sothebys.com.^[5] She has served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lancit Media Productions,^[6] an Emmy award-winning children’s television production company, and as the President of Sony Worldwide Networks, a company formed to oversee the Sony Corporation of America’s investments in satellite and cable radio and to assist in the development of worldwide music video channels and internet broadcasting.^[7] Solomon has also held executive positions at MacAndrews and Forbes Holdings and MMG Patricof and Co., and she is a member of the Board of Directors of the Regional Plan Association of NY.

Personal life

Solomon has three grown sons: Adam Hirsh, a composer in Los Angeles; Ben Goldberger, a journalist in New York, and Alex Goldberger, an Olympics researcher for NBC Sports in New York. She is married to Paul Goldberger, the Pulitzer Prize–winning writer on architecture, design and planning, who is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair.

The New York Stem Cell Foundation

In 2005, Susan L. Solomon co-founded The New York Stem Cell Foundation to cure major diseases through stem cell research. Solomon began her journey as a health-care advocate in 1992 when her son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.^[8] As a result of her son’s diagnosis and then her mother’s death from cancer in 2004, she sought to find a way in which the most advanced medical research could translate more quickly into cures. In conversations with clinicians and scientists, Solomon identified stem cells as the most promising way to address unmet patient needs. In 2006, NYSCF established its own laboratory, which has now become one of the largest private stem cell laboratories in the United States.

NYSCF channels private philanthropy toward the most promising stem cell research.^[9] NYSCF has raised nearly $100 million for stem cell research both in its own laboratory and in the major medical institutions around the world that it continues to support.

Honors, achievements, and awards

Awards

• Stem Cell Action Leadership Award, Genetics Policy Institute, 2012^[10]

• New York State Women of Excellence Award, New York State Governor David A. Paterson, 2008^[11]

• Triumph Award, The Brooke Ellison Foundation, 2008

Past and current memberships

• Executive Committee Member, Alliance for Regenerative Medicine^[12]

• Founding Member and Chair, NYAMR, New Yorkers for the Advancement of Medical Research

• Founding Member, New York Council, Joslin Diabetes Center

• Board of Directors, JDRF, New York Chapter

• Board of Directors, Friends of Mount Sinai Diabetes Center, New York

• Board of Directors, Regional Planning Association, New York

• Member, Strategic Planning Committee, Empire State Stem Cell Board, New York

• Member, Government Affairs Committee, International Society for Stem Cell Research

• Member, American Bar Association

• Member, New York City Bar Association

References