About Us

Richard Witten ’75CC

Richard serves as the Special Advisor to the President of Columbia University, a position he assumed after retiring as the Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the University. He is the Founder of Columbia Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Design and a member of the Columbia University Medical Center Board of Advisors, where he chairs the Cancer Advisory Council. Richard is also the Founder and Senior Managing Director of The Orienta Group, an investment and advisory firm, and is a retired General Partner of Goldman Sachs & Co, where he had a senior management role in the firm’s fixed income, currencies, and commodities businesses.

Richard is the Co-Chairman of the Board of New York City Center, and a member of the Board of the Harlem Children’s Zone. He also chairs the Board of Advisors of the Ragon Institute, a health research partnership between the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard University and MIT.

Mr. Witten was graduated from Columbia College in the City of New York in 1975, and from Harvard Law School in 1978 (both cum laude).

His first novel, Divided Loyalties, was published in 2006.