According to a University report, the Harvard Corporation has taken the next step in its expansion and reorganization—unveiled by Senior Fellow Robert D. Reischauer and President Drew Faust in late 2010—by establishing and populating substantive committees intended to make it a better informed and more strategic governing body.
The new committees, as described last year, are charged with overseeing the Corporation’s operation and evaluating its effectiveness (governance); providing guidance and expertise on major capital investments (such as planned campus development in Allston); ensuring greater depth of understanding about and expertise on Harvard finances, in connection with the Corporation’s fiduciary and budgetary responsibilities; and securing resources, as in a capital campaign (alumni affairs and development).
Governance. Reischauer is chair. Members include Faust and Corporation colleagues Nannerl O. Keohane, president emerita of Wellesley and Duke; William F. Lee, co-managing partner of the WilmerHale law firm; and James F. Rothenberg, Harvard’s treasurer and president of Capital Research and Management Company, a leading investment manager.
Facilities and Capital Planning. Lawrence S. Bacow, one of three Corporation members appointed effective last July 1 (when the Corporation expanded to 10 members, on the way to the goal of 13), is chair; he is president emeritus of Tufts and was formerly chancellor of MIT and director of the MIT Center for Real Estate (he holds public-policy and law degrees from Harvard, and oversaw significant construction projects at Tufts). Other Corporation members include Susan L. Graham, Chen Distinguished Professor emerita of electrical engineering at Berkeley, also appointed last summer; Keohane; and Lee. As planned, the committee includes expert members who do not serve on the Corporation: Peter K. Barber ’70, a long-time, Boston-based, real-estate developer; Thomas Glynn, a lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School who served from 1996 to 2010 as chief operating officer of Partners HealthCare, parent to the Harvard Medical School-affiliated Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s hospitals (and therefore a major presence in the Longwood Medical Area); and Penny Pritzker ’81, a former member of the Board of Overseers who is chair and CEO of Pritzker Realty Group, established in 1991 to oversee the Pritzker family’s real-estate investments other than the Hyatt hotel operations.
Finance. Reischauer (who was director of the Congressional Budget Office and is now president of the Urban Institute) is chair. Other Corporation members include Rothenberg, the treasurer (who also chairs the Harvard Management Company board); Patricia A. King, Waterhouse professor of law, medicine, ethics and public policy at Georgetown Law Center; Joseph J. O’Donnell, a Boston business executive (and the third new member appointed last summer); and Robert E. Rubin, former Secretary of the Treasury and senior executive at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. Members who do not serve on the Corporation include a quartet of financial and business executives: Nicole Arnaboldi ’80, J.D.-M.B.A. ’84, vice chairman of Credit Suisse’s asset-management business; Paul Finnegan ’75, M.B.A. ’82, co-CEO of Madison Dearborn Partners, a Chicago-based private-equity firm and chair of the Overseers’ committee on finance, administration, and management, and a past president of the Harvard Alumni Association; Ann Fudge, M.B.A. ’77, former chair and CEO of Young & Rubicam Brands and a past Overseer; and Scott Nathan ’89, J.D.-M.B.A. ’94, managing director at the Baupost Group, a Boston-based hedge-fund company with a reported $22 billion under management at the end of 2010.
Alumni Affairs and Development, a joint Corporation-Overseers committee. O’Donnell is co-chair with Diana Nelson ’84, an Overseer and past co-chair of the Harvard College Fund, who is a director of the Carlson Companies, the privately held lodging and travel company. According to the University release, 15 governing board members serve on this committee, plus three other alumni: William M. Lewis Jr. ’78, M.B.A. ’82, co-chair of investment banking at Lazard Ltd.; William A. Shutzer ’69, M.B.A. ’72, senior managing partner of Evercore Partners, an investment-banking firm; and Gwill E. York ’79, M.B.A. ’84, co-founder of Lighthouse Capital Partners, which provides debt financing to early-stage venture enterprises.
Details on specific committee charters and operations, and on the Harvard offices staffing them, will be reported when they become available. The University’s release is available here.
