President & CEO at Pasadena Community Foundation
At Blair Search Partners, we believe meaningful leadership is rooted in the ability to bring people together around a shared purpose. Through our Project Impact series, we spotlight leaders whose work strengthens organizations, deepens community connection, and creates lasting impact far beyond the walls of the institutions they serve.
Today, we are proud to feature Khanh Russo, President and CEO of the Pasadena Community Foundation (PCF). Following a nationwide search, Khanh was selected to lead PCF after the retirement of Jennifer DeVoll, who had served as President and CEO for 22 years. With more than two decades of experience spanning philanthropy, public policy, and community development, Khanh brings a career built on the belief that strong communities are made, not by institutions alone, but by the people and partnerships that hold them together.
Meet Khanh
Khanh Russo brings more than 20 years of experience across philanthropy, public policy, and community development. Before joining PCF, he served as Vice President of Policy and Innovation at the San Francisco Foundation, where he led regional and statewide initiatives advancing racial equity and economic inclusion. Prior to that, he served as Director of Strategic Partnerships and Performance for San José Mayor Sam Liccardo, championed civic innovation at Cisco Systems, and held leadership roles at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.
It’s a career that reads as varied on paper, but Khanh sees a clear thread running through all of it.
“I think the through line has always been impact, data and innovation, and service,” he said.
That through line eventually led him back to community philanthropy, a sector he keeps returning to for a reason he describes plainly:
“I’ve always been drawn to and always come back to community philanthropy because it’s philanthropy of the people for the people. It’s about bringing folks together around celebrating, cherishing, and ensuring that the things that make a community strong, powerful, and lovely are always going to be preserved. At the same time, making sure we’re looking out for those who are least served in our community and engaging folks in a way that is not just about money, but … leadership and engagement.”
When the opportunity at PCF opened, it was that sense of purpose, not just the role, that pulled him toward Pasadena.
Stepping Into the Fire
Khanh assumed the presidency of PCF in June 2025, just months after the LA wildfires tore through the region. The team he was joining had already been working at an extraordinary pace for half a year. He arrived in the middle of it, and one of his first priorities was simply paying attention to where people were.
The scale of what had happened was staggering, even for someone with Khanh’s background in disaster response. At Cisco, he had overseen a global portfolio that required waking up each morning and assessing catastrophes around the world. At the City of San José, he had lived through what was then called a 100-year flood, an event that displaced around 500 families. With the Eaton Fire, nineteen neighbors lost their lives, and more than 9,000 structures—including over 6,000 homes and rental units—were destroyed.
PCF moved quickly. The foundation seeded an emergency fund with $100,000 overnight and ultimately raised $83 million for recovery efforts. Khanh helped guide the team to streamline grantmaking so resources could get out the door without getting tangled in the process. New coalitions formed between banks, insurance companies, developers, civic leaders, and philanthropies — these were tables that hadn’t existed before the fires and became essential to coordinating a response at that scale.
One moment stood out as a reminder of why community foundations exist in the first place. PCF supported efforts that brought fire survivors directly to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in Washington D.C.. Watching survivors speak for themselves, in their own words, to the people with the power to respond — that, he said, was heartwarming in the truest sense.
Rooted in Community, Guided by Equity
For Khanh, equity-centered philanthropy starts from the belief that the communities closest to a problem already carry the solution — and that a foundation’s job is to resource and trust that expertise, not arrive with answers of its own.
In practice, that looks like patience. It looks like doing the homework to understand the context he doesn’t yet have. And it looks like designing grantmaking structures that give nonprofit partners room to move.
When Khanh thinks about where he wants PCF to be five years from now, he comes back to one phrase: a constant guide. He sees PCF growing as an organization that is deeply embedded in its community, with relationships strong enough that it can show up in a way that truly centers its partners in the solution rather than arriving with one of its own. The grant philosophy follows naturally from that — ideally larger, multi-year, and unrestricted, because partners who are genuinely known and trusted should have the flexibility to pivot when circumstances demand it. The pandemic taught PCF something about that kind of agility. The fires demanded it all over again.
The BSP Difference: Transparency That Builds Confidence
Khanh worked with Sarah Thompson, BSP’s Senior Director of Executive Search and Recruiting, throughout the PCF search. What stood out to him wasn’t the logistics — it was the honesty. The process never felt like a black box. Sarah was upfront about the culture, candid about both the strengths and challenges of the role, and clear about what the organization was looking for. Values, not just fit, were always at the center of the conversation.
The preparation before each interview also made a real difference. Before every conversation, Sarah would call to walk Khanh through who he’d be meeting, what mattered to them, and how to approach the discussion. It gave him confidence going in.
“Khanh has an innate passion for doing great work and a genuine belief that community is something you build together, not something you manage from the top,” said Thompson. “From the very first conversation, it was clear he wasn’t just looking for a role, but a place where his values could make a tangible impact.”
For senior leaders weighing whether to work with a search firm, Khanh’s perspective is straightforward: a good search firm gives you insight you simply can’t get when you’re engaging with an organization directly. They can tell you where you stand, what your strengths are relative to the candidate pool, and what the people on the other side of the table actually care about. That kind of transparency makes a real difference.
Looking Ahead
One year in, Khanh is holding two things at once: keeping the drumbeat of fire recovery going while making sure the rest of PCF’s community work doesn’t lose momentum. He’s quick to note that these aren’t separate efforts. The education grants PCF makes to Pasadena Unified, for example, directly serve students who’ve been displaced by the fires. The work was always connected. The fires just made that connection more visible.
Recovery at this scale, Khanh knows, is a decade-long journey at minimum. PCF is built for it. And Khanh, who moved from San José to a community that he says doesn’t let you be a stranger for long, seems to have found exactly the right place to do it.
Your Next Opportunity Starts Here
We are proud to celebrate Khanh and his incredible leadership at the Pasadena Community Foundation. His story is a testament to what happens when the right leader meets the right moment. Congratulations, Khanh!
If you’re an organization striving to make a difference by hiring a team of changemakers, or an individual looking for your next career move in the nonprofit sector, visit us at blairsearchpartners.com and let’s see what we can do together.
We’d love to help you find your next great hire.