Biography
Robin Mendelson is an ex-officio member of the YAA Board of Governors in her capacity as current chair of the Editorial Advisory Board Committee for the Yale Alumni Magazine. She previously served as a regular member of the Board of Governors for a three-year term (2022–2025).
Mendelson is a former executive at Amazon.com and a board member with more than 25 years of experience at the intersection of media, finance, business and technology. After beginning her career in book publishing in New York, she spent 20 years at Amazon, holding leadership roles in Finance, General Management and Technology for high-growth divisions and subsidiaries around the world. Most recently she led the company's U.S. Media Division — including books, music, movies, software and video games — with strategic and P&L ownership for the portfolio of businesses.
Mendelson serves as an independent board director at Mainstay, a technology company operating in the higher education and workforce sectors, and is a board member of TeachUnited, a nonprofit dedicated to reducing inequality through education in rural and underserved communities both in the U.S. and internationally. She is an advisory board member for the Yale School of Management’s Broad Center for Leadership for Public Education, and serves on SOM’s West Coast Advisory Board. She and her family live in Seattle, Washington.
