Jacob Harold is a social change strategist, author, and executive. He served as President & CEO of GuideStar and co-founder of Candid. Fast Company called Candid “the definitive nonprofit transparency organization.” Each year, more than 20 million people use its data on nonprofits, grants, and social sector practice.

During his tenure leading GuideStar, Harold oversaw a financial turn-around, a tripling of GuideStar’s reach, and major partnerships with organizations ranging from Google to the Gates Foundation.

Before that, he worked as a grantmaker at the $10 billion Hewlett Foundation, a consultant to nonprofits at the Bridgespan Group, and as a climate change campaigner and strategist with the Packard Foundation, Rainforest Action Network and Greenpeace USA. He began his career as a grassroots organizer with Green Corps.  

Harold was named to the Nonprofit Times Power and Influence Top 50 in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020.  His essays have been used as course materials at Stanford, Duke, Wharton, Oxford, and Tsinghua and he has been quoted in the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, and Wall Street Journal. He earned an AB summa cum laude from Duke University and an MBA from Stanford.  Harold is from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where his parents ran small community-based nonprofit organizations.