Fight For Children Board of Directors

Joseph E. Robert, Jr.
Executive Chairman
J.E. Robert Companies

Joseph E. Robert, Jr. is founder and Executive Chairman of J.E. Robert Companies (JER), a leading private commercial real estate investment and asset management firm. Founded in 1981 J.E. Robert Companies has successfully purchased and managed approximately 15,000 assets totaling 28 billion dollars across 17 countries. JER’s operations and investments today are focused primarily in North America and Europe.

Mr. Robert is Chairman of Business Executives for National Security (BENS), a nonpartisan national organization of senior executives dedicated to enhancing our national security, using the successful models of the private sector. Over the past 27 years BENS members have brought their expertise to bear to procedures for base closures (BRAC), created a model of public private partnerships to improve disaster relief response, and worked to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Department of Defense (tooth to tail) through modern business practices. BENS is currently working with DoD and the US Congress to identify important steps that can and should be taken to improve DoD’s acquisition programs.

He is also the Chairman of the US-UAE Business Council, a collaboration of leading companies based in the United States and United Arab Emirates, which are committed to expanding bi-lateral commercial opportunities between the two countries. Due to his many and long standing relationships throughout the Middle East and Gulf region Mr. Robert was asked to be the founding Chairman. The Council is at the forefront of the Nuclear 123 Agreement between the US and the UAE and has been instrumental in its progress.

In 2008, Mr. Robert was honored by the EastWest Institute, together with former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Schultz, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn and Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, for his leadership of the business community to improve national and international security. Mr. Robert was awarded the first ever Father Flanagan’s Boys Town Spirit of Youth Award and the Peter Flanagan Children First Award. He was named Washingtonian of the Year in 1997.

Robert’s philanthropic commitments are equally as ambitious. In 1990, Robert founded and continues to serve as Chairman of Fight For Children, Inc. (FFC), a Washington based philanthropic organization whose mission is to create, promote and invest in K-12 education opportunities that successfully prepare children for college and the workplace, and to provide quality primary health care options for our youth. Since FFC’s inception, it has raised over $310 million through contributions, matching grants and public policy initiatives to support more than 140 organizations in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. In addition, Joseph Robert is the Chairman of the Washington Scholarship Fund, one of the nation’s largest providers of scholarships to children of low income families in Washington DC. He was Chairman of the successful $300 million Comprehensive Campaign at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC, which resulted in the building of the Joseph E. Robert, Jr. Center for Surgical Care at the Children’s National Medical Center.

Mr. Robert was awarded Honorary Doctorates from St. John’s College and Mount Saint Mary’s University.

Mr. Robert is a member of the board of the following organizations:

Peterson Institute for International Economics, Atlantic Council of the United States, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Quincy Jones Listen Up Foundation, Smithsonian’s National Zoo, the National Geographic Society, the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees.

Mr. Robert is a member of the World Economic Forum, Horatio Alger Association, The Trilateral Commission, World President’s Organization, Chief Executive’s Organization, Council on Foreign Relations, Foreign Policy Association, The Urban Land Institute and The Bretton Woods Committee.

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