Erik Herzfeld
President & Chief Executive Officer
Erik Herzfeld brings more than three decades of experience in quantitative finance and investment management to his leadership of the Jacob Zabara Foundation. His career spans senior derivatives and foreign exchange roles at JP Morgan Chase and Lehman Brothers, including serving as Head of JP Morgan FX Derivatives Correlation Trading in Tokyo.
He holds an SM in Financial Engineering from MIT Sloan School of Management and a BA in Economics from Johns Hopkins University. That foundation in financial engineering, systems thinking, and global markets informs how Erik approaches the Foundation’s work — with rigor, strategic vision, and a belief that the right capital, deployed to the right people, deployed at the right moment, can accelerate scientific breakthroughs that transform lives.
Erik’s commitment to the Foundation is also deeply personal. A close friend and mentee of Dr. Jacob Zabara, Erik considers it both an honor and a responsibility to carry forward the legacy of a man he admired deeply — and whose conviction that science could reshape our understanding of the human mind continues to guide everything the Foundation does.