Corporation of Brown University elects four new trustees

At its May meeting, the Corporation of Brown University elected four new trustees to six-year terms. Richard Barker, Robin Lenhardt, Jonathan Nelson and Daniel O’Connell will serve as members of the University’s governing body through 2006.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — At its annual Commencement Weekend meeting Saturday, May 26, 2000, the Corporation of Brown University elected four new trustees to six-year terms. The new trustees are Richard C. Barker ’57, an investment executive; Robin Lenhardt ’89, a former attorney adviser with the U.S. Department of Justice; Jonathan M. Nelson ’77, an investment banker; and Daniel S. O’Connell ’76, an investment executive.

The Corporation, the governing body of Brown University, is composed of a 12-member Board of Fellows and a 42-member Board of Trustees, all elected by the Corporation itself. Fourteen members of the Board of Trustees are alumni/ae trustees, nominated by the Brown Alumni Association and elected to office by the Corporation. The newly elected trustees will be sworn in at the next regular meeting of the Corporation in October.

The Corporation is responsible for establishing broad policies for the operation of the University, for selecting a president to carry out those policies, for appointing administrative officers and faculty members, for managing the funds and holding the real estate of the University. In addition to attending the three regular meetings of the Brown Corporation (October, February and May), members of the Corporation are normally asked to serve on one or more standing committees of the Corporation and may be asked to serve on ad hoc boards or committees established from time to time.

Richard C. Barker, a member of the Class of 1957, served on the Board of Trustees from 1994 to 1999. After earning his Bachelor of Arts degree from Brown, he did postgraduate study at the University of Connecticut School of Business. Barker is an investment executive and fiduciary officer and serves as chairman of Capital International LTD (London). He is board president of the Branson School, a trustee of the Naval War College Foundation, a trustee of the Marin General Hospital Foundation, a member of the President’s Council at RAND, and a member and past director of the Security Analysts of San Francisco, where he currently makes his home.

Robin Lenhardt, a member of the Class of 1989, received her bachelor’s degree in English and American literature with honors. She earned a J.D. cum laude and an M.P.A. from Harvard in 1995. Until recently, she was an attorney adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel for the U.S. Department of Justice. Prior to that appointment in 1998, she was a Skadden Foundation Fellow serving as a staff attorney in the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights. As an undergraduate, Lenhardt was a Rose Writing Fellow, a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority and a leader in the Brown Outdoor Leadership Training (BOLT) program. Lenhardt lives in Washington D.C., where she recently became an associate with the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering.

Jonathan M. Nelson is president and founder of Providence Equity Partners Inc., a private investment firm that specializes in equity investments in telecommunications companies in North America and Europe. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics at Brown in 1977 and an M.B.A. from Harvard in 1983. Before founding Providence Equity Partners in 1991, Nelson had been a managing director of Narragansett Capital Inc. which he joined in 1983. He lives in Providence, R.I.

Daniel S. O’Connell, a member of the Class of 1976, was a political science concentrator at Brown. He is a founding partner and CEO of Vestar Capital Partners Inc., a leading investment firm that manages more than $1 billion in equity capital. Prior to founding Vestar in 1988, O’Connell was a managing director and head of the leveraged buyout department of First Boston Corp. A star athlete in high school, he was recruited by Brown and was a member of the football team. O’Connell lives in New York City.