Robert Bank

President and CEO

American Jewish World Service (AJWS)

Robert Bank is President and CEO of American Jewish World Service (AJWS), the world’s leading Jewish social change organization working to end poverty and realize human rights in the developing world by supporting grassroots activists and progressive social movements. Robert has spent his career championing human rights as an attorney, activist and leader. He previously served in New York’s municipal government and in the leadership of GMHC—one of the world’s leading organizations combatting HIV/AIDS, where he played an instrumental role in the campaign to overturn the ban on HIV-positive people entering the United States and becoming U.S. citizens. Robert received Harvard Law School’s Wasserstein Public Interest Fellowship and his leadership has been recognized with GMHC’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the Partners in Justice Award from AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps. He is an advisor to The Conversation: Jewish in America, serves on the advisory board of Safety Respect Equity, a Jewish coalition to address sexual harassment and gender discrimination, and is on the board of Leading Edge, the alliance for excellence in Jewish leadership. Robert’s passion for human rights was shaped growing up in South Africa, in a family that was engaged in the struggle to end apartheid.