Richard Hadar is co-chair and founder of The Richard and Mica Hadar Foundation. Together with Mica Hadar, he oversees scholarships, the mentoring program, and the collaborations with New York City schools and organizations.
Richard Hadar founded the Richard and Mica Hadar Foundation in 1993 as a way of giving back to society. Having helped over 250 college students, with a graduation rate of over 95%, he has turned his efforts to alleviating the college tuition crisis. With almost 20 years of experience, his goal is to encourage more private individuals to create scholarship programs that will reduce the need for college bound students to be unduly burdened by suffocating student debt.
Richard graduated from Pennsylvania State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1961. After spending two years in the army, he launched a series of successful ventures, first in international marketing and then in real estate. As founder of Richard Hadar Funding, LLC, Richard is best known for his investments over the last two decades in such signature properties as: the Citicorp Center; 1 East 57th Street (now the LVMH building); Studio 54 (which he converted into a theater); and most, recently, 915 Broadway. He also has holdings in Illinois, Arizona, New Hampshire, Oregon and Colorado.
Richard’s life has been shaped by entrepreneurship and charity. Even as a child contributing to his family’s earnings hauling and selling topsoil to gardeners, he was taught to remember the less fortunate and set money aside for charity. His early music education taught him that art students had the discipline and the drive to succeed in higher education, a conviction borne out by the high level of achievement of Hadar scholars, many of whom go on to earn Master’s and Doctorate’s degrees.
He and his wife, Mica, divide their time between New York City and a farm in Chianti, Italy producing wine and olive oil. He is currently finishing a book on his experiences there and has also been composing music. Mica was born in Italy and is a painter, playwright and actress. She was a protegé of Vittorio Gassman, who founded the famous acting school in Florence, Bottega Teatreale di Firenze, where she received a full scholarship. The school graduated some of the finest current day actors and actresses in Italy. She is also on the Board of Directors of NYU’s Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimo.
Their combined love of the arts is manifested in their work on their foundation and helping talented aspiring young artists.