Patrick Gaston is President of the Western Union Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Western Union Company. In this position, he is responsible for the development of a global Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Philanthropic strategy with impact throughout the globe. Since its inception in 2001, the Foundation has committed more than $100 million in grants and other giving to more than 2,627 nongovernmental organizations in more than 130 countries and territories, through a variety of grantmaking programs including:
Prior to joining Western Union, Mr. Gaston served as CEO of Gastal Networks LLC, a management consulting company that assists corporations and non-profits in building Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Philanthropic strategies. Prior to forming his company, Patrick served as a Senior Advisor to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund where he provided strategic counsel and led broad outreach programs to increase awareness and support from major donors, corporations and foundations.
Before joining the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, Patrick Gaston was President of the Verizon Foundation, one of the 15 largest corporate foundations in America, overseeing an annual budget of $75 million and a corpus of approximately $600 million. He was responsible for philanthropic strategy, grant making and initiatives in the foundation's areas of education and literacy, family safety and health and employee volunteerism. Under his leadership, the foundation invested more than $500 million in communities in the U.S. and around the globe and instituted impact reporting and accountability measures for all social investments.
In 2014 and 2009, Patrick was named as one of the top 100 most influential African-Americans in corporate America by Savoy Professional magazine. He was also named Corporate Responsibility Magazine Foundation CEO of the year in 2010. He has served as a guest lecturer at several universities, including Notre Dame University, Rutgers University, Lehigh University, Emory University and Dartmouth College, and speaks frequently at national venues on the subjects of corporate responsibility and philanthropy.
Patrick was raised in Haiti, Montreal, Canada and Boston, Massachusetts. He holds a B.A. in management from the University of Massachusetts and an M.B.A. from Northeastern University. Additionally, he earned an International Certificate in Business from Ecole Superieure de Commerce in Reims, France.