CEO and founder Bob Fishman set out to grow a different kind of corporation, one based on a values-driven approach and an organizational structure that encourages and empowers employees to be more responsive to the people they serve – and each other.
In his book The Common Good Corporation, Fishman writes: “RHD was conceived and developed as an experiment … about creating healthy workplace communities. The experiment confirms that large faceless groups cannot manage conflict successfully, but small working groups can – if employees are given the freedom to do so. I have come to believe that if human beings want to, they can settle almost every disagreement, but only in one time and in one place. That is what it is like to live in a world of infinite possibility. Add to this a set of values-based guidelines that small groups can use to manage their conflicts and we are well on the road to a common good corporate effort, with all the energy and creativity that such an effort releases.”
A graduate of Brooklyn College with a master’s from Columbia, Fishman’s career in social work began as a marital and family therapist. He worked as a teaching associate at the University of Pennsylvania and as program developer for Pennsylvania Hospital, conceived and implemented major mental health, health centers and public health programs for Pennsylvania Hospital and the University of Pennsylvania.
Taking over as executive director for RHD in 1970, Fishman implemented a values-driven culture in which he eschews an office and sits at a desk on the main floor with everyone else. His CEO salary is capped in perpetuity at a rate tied to the lowest-salaried employee and has pioneered the One Percent Solution, a club aimed at addressing income disparity by donating one percent of his salary each week into a pool everyone can draw from.
Married, with three children, to Barbara Fishman (noted author, psychotherapist and administrator of RHD’s Access Team), he now oversees one of the largest and fastest-growing nonprofit corporations in the country.
Join the conversation with Bob Fishman on the RHD blog
RHD's Board of Directors
Bertram Wolfson, Esq., President
Sheldon Steinberg, V.M.D., Vice-President
Anthony J. Parrotto, Secretary/Treasurer
Cody Anderson
Fred Bonaparte
Avrene L. Brandt, Ph.D.
Jo Ann E. Connelly, M.S.W, L.S.W.
Caryn Reichlin Johnson, M.S., OTR/L, FAOTA
Virginia Kricun
Edward Robinson, Ph.D.
Barbara Shoulson-Kuhn
Samantha Jones-Thomas
Marvin Weisbord
Tanya Stewart
RHD's Management Team
Robert Fishman, CEO and founder
Margaret Mowatt, COO
Sharon Kauffman, Corporate Associate Director
Marsha O'Hara, Corporate Associate Director
Michael Denomme, Corporate Associate Director
Dennis Roberts, Corporate Associate Director
Richelle Gunter, Corporate Associate Director
Todd Silverstein, Director of Budget