Three Dartmouth alumni have advanced past a long selection process to become finalists for a soon-to-open alumni seat on the Board of Trustees.
At the beginning of March, Dartmouth's 60,000 alumni will decide whether Elyse Allan '79, John J. Donahoe '82 or Richard W. Lewis '84 will take over the vacancy left by Trustee Chair Susan Dentzer '77.
Dentzer will not leave the Board, but will serve a one-year-term as a Charter Trustee. Her second five-year term as an Alumni Trustee ends in June. Two Charter Trustees, David Shipler '64 and David M. Shribman '76, are leaving after two five-year terms.
The seven Charter Trustees are nominated and elected by the Board itself, while the seven Alumni Trustees are nominated by the Alumni Council and elected by Dartmouth graduates.
The Board also includes the state governor and the College president.
The Trustees' term will officially end on Jun. 30. The new Board begins the following day.
All three candidates are leaders in international business. Allan, who serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Toronto Board of Trade, has also held senior management positions in industries in Canada and the U.S. A resident of Toronto, she received the 1999 Executive of the Year Award from the Chamber of Commerce Executives of Canada.
Donahoe is the Worldwide Managing Director of Bain & Company, a consulting company where he is responsible for overseeing the firm's 27 global offices and more than 2,500 employees. He lives in San Francisco.
Lewis is the Chief Executive of Curzon Global Partners, a real estate investment management company. Since 1998, Lewis, who lives in London, has overseen the international activities of AEW Capital Management and served as their Director of Asset Management, overseeing a $4 billion equity portfolio.
The long Trustee selection process began last summer, when search committees began soliciting nominations, and will continue until the vote in March, Director of Alumni Leadership Patricia Fisher-Harris '81 said.
The Alumni Council researched the hundreds of names it received and narrowed the field to a short list.
The committee then met with the remaining candidates and selected the final three to be voted by the Dartmouth alumni population.
Throughout the process, the search committee looked at a variety of aspects of the candidates, including their intellectual depth, ability to work on a small board, interest in higher education issues and stature in their chosen field, Fisher-Harris said.
The voting will end in April; simply put, the candidate with the most votes wins.
"Either way Dartmouth can't go wrong," Fisher-Harris said.
