Dafna Meitar-Nechmad
Chairwoman of the Board of Governors
Dafna Meitar-Nechmad has served as Chairwoman of the Tel Aviv University (TAU) Board of Governors since October 2021. Prior to that, she co-chaired TAU’s $1 billion global campaign, leading it to a successful conclusion after four years of visionary fundraising and international collaboration.
A former corporate attorney and partner at Meitar Law Offices, Dafna specialized in commercial, corporate, and telecommunications law. Over the past two decades, however, she has dedicated herself fully to the nonprofit sector in Israel.
In 2003, Dafna co-founded the Zvi and Ofra Meitar Family Fund with her father, supporting education, culture, and innovation in Israel and internationally. In 2014, she founded the Institute for Law and Philanthropy at TAU, placing philanthropic policy and research on Israel’s socio-economic agenda and leading the creation of the country’s first Donor-Advised Fund (DAF).
Dafna has held numerous philanthropic leadership roles, including:
• Chairperson of the Israeli Opera Friends’ Association (2005–2012)
• Board member of the Jewish Funders Network (JFN) since 2014, where she co-chaired the 2017 annual conference in Atlanta and has been instrumental in deepening Israeli-American philanthropic partnerships
• Member of Committed to Give, an Israeli initiative that promotes active and strategic giving among high-net-worth individuals
Her impact extends well beyond Israel. Dafna is the first and only Israeli to serve on the Metropolitan Opera’s Managing Director’s Committee (2013–2017) and as a member of its Advisory Committee (2017-2020). She also served as a member of the International Director’s Council of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York (2014-2022).
As a philanthropist and a woman, Dafna is deeply committed to addressing gender inequality. In response to the COVID-19 crisis, she initiated the Women’s Philanthropy Leadership Group at JFN, promoting gender mainstreaming — the integration of a gender lens into the practices of donors and foundations.
