Ben died April 1, 2021, at his New York City home of complications from multiple system atrophy, a rare degenerative disease.
Originally from Bryn Mawr, Pa., at Princeton Ben majored in Russian studies and was in the first cohort of the reopened Cloister Inn. He planned to work on improving U.S.-Soviet trade relations after we graduated, a dream the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan interrupted. Instead, he had a long career in finance and executive search, in New York, London, Hong Kong, and Tokyo.
While living in Hong Kong, Ben met and married journalist Margaret Scott, then an editor at the Far East Economic Review. In 1997, Ben and Margaret moved to New York, and he started his own executive search firm. Along the way, he studied French at the University of Besançon, Russian at the Leningrad State University, and post-Cold War Japanese-Russian relations at Harvard’s John King Fairbank Center for East Asian Research.
Ben was on the board of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, and over the years headed its capital campaign, chaired the board, and represented Venice as a Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation trustee. He helped found American Friends of London’s Royal Court Theatre and served on its development board.
Ben was passionate about people and life. He was a warm, engaging, and caring person with a broad range of interests, a sharp sense of humor, and a most wonderful ability to bring people together.
The class sends its sincere condolences to Margaret; their daughter Isabel; and siblings Eleanor Rauch Crosby, Rudolph ’65, Susan, and Sheila Rauch Kennedy.