Eileen Rockefeller

Eileen Rockefeller is the great-granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller and the youngest child of David and Peggy Rockefeller. She has lived an inspiring and multifaceted life, and her memoir—Being a Rockefeller, Becoming Myself—shares her stories with disarming vulnerability, connecting the extraordinary experience of being a Rockefeller to the universal one of finding identity and purpose.

As a teenager, Eileen lived on a farm-based school in the Adirondack Mountains, sowing the seeds of her continuing passion for nature, health, and environmental sustainability. As a young woman, an extraordinary meeting with Georgia O’Keefe helped give her the courage to pursue her own path.

Inspired by her mentor, Norman Cousins (pioneering author on the healing powers of laughter), she played a pivotal role in legitimizing the field of mind/body connections in health and disease. She later introduced Daniel Goleman to the subject of his bestselling book, <em>Emotional Intelligence</em>. Together with several others, they founded the movement to teach social and emotional learning in schools.

The first Rockefeller woman to write a personal family memoir, Eileen reveals her family’s wholesome values that contrast with those often held by the rich and famous. Her intimate stories affirm how self-understanding helps make us whole, whatever the circumstances of our birth.

Although the Rockefellers are an intensely private family, they have been described as the closest America has to royalty. Their extraordinary contributions to the national and international landscape have influenced the global economy and science, and have created and preserved national parks and monuments, founded major universities, medical schools and museums, and have passionately supported the arts and culture in the U.S. and around the world.

Eileen is co-chair of her family’s generational association, the founding chair of the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisers, founder of the Institute for the Advancement of Health, and co-founder of the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL). Together with her husband and sons, Eileen manages a philanthropic fund that catalyzes actions to stem climate change.

Eileen frequently speaks on topics relating to legacy, family, philanthropy, and social & emotional learning.