Richard Krasno is the Executive Director Emeritus of the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust and former director and president of the four affiliated William R. Kenan, Jr. Funds. The five Kenan philanthropies provide grants to institutions in the fields of education, private enterprise, science and technology, arts and ethics.
Krasno served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Education from 1979-1980. From 1981– 1998 he served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Institute of International Education in New York. Krasno was President of the Monterey Institute of International Studies from 1998-1999. From 2004–2012, Krasno also served as a director of the University of North Carolina Health Care System and served as Chairman of the Board from 2009–2012. He is currently a member of the board of directors of OPKO Health, Inc. and Biocardia, Inc. He has previously served as a corporate director of Ladenburg Thalmann Financial Services Corporation, Castle Brands, IVAX Corporation and the Whitman Group.
His current non-profit activities include the Visiting Committee of the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership of the City University of New York, the board of advisors at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami, and trusteeship of Flagler Museum. He has previously served as the Chairman of the Rhodes Scholarship Selection Committee for North Carolina, trustee of the Eisenhower Fellowship Program, member of the U.S.-Brazil Fulbright Commission, and director of the Miami Heart Research Institute. He has a Ph.D. from Stanford University and has held faculty positions at Stanford, the University of Chicago and the Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Spain.