Rafael Pastor

Rafael Pastor has an extensive and diversified track record in both running successful businesses and advising business leaders. His career has spanned the media/entertainment, education, and business/financial services sectors.

He currently serves as: Chairman of the Boards of Ensight and Classical Tahoe; an advisor to a major international private equity firm; and a limited partner and advisor in several investment partnerships. He has served: on the Board of KinderCare Education (the largest early-childhood education company in the United States); as a Founder and Director of Rosetta Books (a pioneer in e-book publishing); and on the Board of Experience Investment Corp. (a successful SPAC). From 2004 to 2013, he was Chairman of the Board and CEO of Vistage International, the world’s largest for-profit CEO membership company which he co-owned with Larry Ellison, Michael Milken and Thomson Reuters until it was sold to a private equity firm.

Previously, based in New York, he held these positions at global media companies: CEO of Hoyts Cinemas Corporation; President of USA Networks International; Executive Vice President, International, of News Corporation and Fox Television International (reporting to Rupert Murdoch); and President of CBS/Fox Video International. Subsequently, he was co-Founder and co-Chairman of the Sonenshine Pastor (now Sonenshine Partners) investment-banking firm in New York City.

 At UC San Diego: he was the Chairman and remains a member of the International Advisory Board of the School of Global Policy and Strategy; is a Trustee of the UCSD Foundation; and is a Member of the Executive Committee of the Dean’s Advisory Council of the Rady School of Management. He is a former Board Member of the National Association of Corporate Directors/Pacific Southwest Chapter. He has served as a Trustee of a range of educational, cultural and humanitarian nonprofit organizations.

He started his career as an attorney, first at the Wall Street law firm of Hawkins, Delafield and Wood and then as Associate General Counsel at CBS Inc. He earned a BA from Columbia University and a JD from NYU School of Law. Born in Israel to Hungarian parents, he speaks Hungarian and French and (less fluently) German and Hebrew.