Ricardo Castro Champions Health Equity

Ricardo Castro grew up in a predominantly Cuban immigrant neighborhood in working-class New Jersey. This upbringing instilled a commitment to serving his community and giving back when possible.

“When my parents had to go to the unemployment office, they made me interpret for them, and I had to advocate for them as best as I could,” recalls Castro, now the vice president, general counsel, and secretary of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a leading national nonprofit focused on advancing health and health equity. “Sometimes, they’d lend me out to other people from the community whose kids didn’t have those skills, and I’d just spend a long time in that office helping out. I enjoyed seeing how I could make a difference with my ability to articulate things in two languages.”

Finding His Calling

Armed with that experience and desire to advocate for others, a career in law was a natural choice for Castro. After getting a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania, obtaining a law degree from New York University, and taking on a clerkship at the Supreme Court of New Jersey, Castro started his career in big law.

At McCarter & English, he spent a year handling all aspects of commercial litigation. Then he spent three years handling general corporate and securities matters in Latin America at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton.

While those roles allowed Castro to get solid legal training and to pay back his student loans, they left something to be desired.

“I went to law school to be a public interest lawyer and to serve a good cause. Not to make rich people richer, which is essentially what you’re doing when you work at a big corporate law firm,” Castro shares. “I did learn a lot about striving for excellence in work product and working with smart people, but I wanted to do direct legal services for people who really needed it.”

Pursuing Purpose

Consequently, Castro joined the Gay Men’s Health Crisis in 1993, where he represented low-income individuals with HIV/AIDS in a variety of legal matters. From there, Castro went on to work for several other philanthropic and nonprofit organizations.

He has served as GC and secretary at the Open Society Foundations; VP, secretary, and GC for the Ford Foundation; and EVP for Consumer Reports. Other roles have included a one-year stint as GC at the Clinton Foundation and five years as VP and GC at the International Rescue Committee.

Those roles afforded Castro the chance to travel the world, deal with interesting issues, and help solve some of today’s most pressing problems. For instance, he was part of a team that partnered with the City of Detroit to come up with the Grand Bargain, a plan to prevent the sale of artwork from the Detroit Institute of Arts to pay off city debt, preserve city pensions, and fulfill creditor obligations.

Leaving a Lasting Legacy

Above all, though, Castro is proudest of the people he’s worked with and the opportunity he’s had to train and mentor them.

“As a lawyer, you have a lot of young lawyers who come and work for you as well as support staff. When I look at everyone who’s worked for me now, I see MBA holders, civil rights attorneys, and people making a difference in whatever sphere they’re in,” Castro shares. “I take pride in the fact that many of them have thanked me for giving them opportunities to shine, whether that was through advice I gave them about career choices or writing them letters of recommendation.”

Championing Health Equity

In his current role at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Castro leads a legal team of 14. His staffers are just as committed to the foundation’s mission to improve health equity across the United States as he is.

“Health outcomes for people of color are quite disparate compared to white Americans, and there’s a lot of reasons for that,” Castro says. “The foundation wants to get to the bottom of it and support groups working to reverse those effects.”

Navigating Challenges

Right now, it’s a very busy time for Castro and his colleagues. The VP and his team are focused on the impacts of the Supreme Court’s decision on affirmative action. The ruling, which struck down the use of race as a factor in college admissions, may be consequential for grant making. Organizations may reevaluate their criteria and priorities for awarding grants, weighing whether to take diversity, equity, and inclusion into account.

“There are those who would like to use that [Supreme Court] case to weaponize [DEI] and keep foundations from making grants specifically for Black people and Latinos,” Castro says. “For many years, foundations have funded programs and initiatives designed to reverse the legacy of racism and slavery, and those programs are still needed. We want to continue to fund those activities, and we believe we’re in our rights to do so.”

The Next Chapter

Castro sees this role as the final chapter in his career. But his version of retirement won’t be the traditional one you may think of. “By retirement, I mean not working every day,” he says. “I can’t imagine not being involved in community-related matters. The advocate in me won’t allow me to sit around playing pinochle.”