PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — During its annual spring meeting in May, the Corporation of Brown University elected five new members to its Board of Trustees. Each was invited to serve on Brown’s governing body based on their commitment to the University and its mission of education and research.

Five new trustees — Eldridge H. Gilbert III, Shanelle Chambers Haile, Christine A. Leahy, Amra Sabic-El-Rayess and Gladys Xiques — were elected by the Corporation. Members of the Board of Trustees customarily serve six-year terms, with new alumni trustees serving for two years. Haile will serve as a new alumni trustee.

Members are formally engaged in October at the first Corporation meeting of the academic year.

All members are dedicated to ensuring that their work will produce an intellectual environment that will shape the careers and lives of future generations. The roles and responsibilities of Corporation members are outlined in detail on the Corporation website.

New Trustees

• Eldridge H. Gilbert III earned a bachelor’s degree in Africana studies and psychology from Brown University in 2005. After graduation, Gilbert joined Teach For America and worked in Houston for 11 years, during which time he earned a master’s degree in business administration from the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University. While in Houston, he worked for YES Prep Public Schools and was the founding school director of YES Prep North Forest, a Grade 6 to 12 campus of approximately 850 students. After leaving Houston, Gilbert worked as the managing director of schools for KIPP Bay Area Public Schools in California. In 2018, he moved to Brooklyn, New York, where he served as the chief schools officer for Coney Island Prep charter schools for five years. He is currently the senior vice president head of scholars at Sponsors for Educational Opportunity, where he manages the organization’s high school and college scholar programs in New York, San Francisco and Greensboro, North Carolina. He also works as an executive coach and principal success coach for school leaders across the country for the KIPP Foundation.
• Shanelle Chambers Haile holds a bachelor’s degree from Spelman College, a master’s degree from Vanderbilt University and will soon complete a Ph.D. in sociology from Brown. Prior to coming to Brown, she worked at the U.S. Department of Justice on programs related to community-related policing, and then at the U.S. Agency for International Development, overseeing programs in support of multiple African nations. Haile has been actively engaged in the Brown community, including serving as a graduate community fellow a, graduate coordinator at the Sarah Doyle Center for Women and Gender, and a provost’s proctor — a role that included supporting summer programming for students from Afghanistan, drafting policy and supporting campus institutes in their strategic planning efforts. Through these roles, she advocated for campus policies designed to support student parents and developed programming for graduate students. She recently led an assessment to help historically Black colleges and universities obtain federal grants and awards, which led to the signing of agreements by three HBCUs and the U.S. Agency for International Development. In Fall 2023, she will join McKinsey and Company in an associate role.
• Christine A. Leahy, a Class of 1986 Brown graduate, is chair and chief executive officer of CDW Corporation, a technology services and solutions provider for business, government and education. Additionally, she is a founder and sponsor of CDW’s Women’s Opportunity Network, a business resource group that actively and strategically supports women’s advancement at CDW. Before assuming her current role in 2018, Leahy held various leadership positions at CDW including chief revenue officer, senior vice president and chief legal counsel. Prior to joining CDW in 2002 as their first general counsel, Leahy was a corporate partner in the Chicago office of international law firm Sidley Austin. Leahy is a director of Target Corporation. She serves on the board of the Economic Club of Chicago and is a member of both the Chicago Network and the Business Council. Leahy earned a bachelor’s degree in English and American literature and history from Brown and a J.D. from Boston College Law School. She completed the CEO Perspectives Program and the Women’s Director Development Program at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. She is a trustee and past chair of Children’s Home and Aid Society of Illinois and a board member of Northwestern Memorial Hospital and Junior Achievement of Chicago.
• Amra Sabic-El-Rayess, a Class of 2000 Brown graduate, is an associate professor of practice in organization and leadership at Columbia University’s Teachers College; executive director at the International Interfaith Research Lab; and a faculty member at Columbia’s Harriman Institute for Russian, Eurasian and Eastern European Studies and Middle East Institute. Sabic-El-Rayess has published on a range of issues, including educational displacement, violence prevention and radicalization. She has delivered over 100 invited lectures in more than 15 countries. She is a recipient of research grants from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships; the Muslim World League; the Smith Richardson Foundation; the U.S. State Department; Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; the International Research and Exchange Board; and Women’s World Banking. Sabic-El-Rayess was awarded a 2021 Finalist Medal for Excellence in Young Adult Nonfiction by the American Library Association and best book recognition by School Library Journal, Malala Fund, Capitol Choices and Children’s Center for Literature for her memoir, “The Cat I Never Named” (Bloomsbury, 2020) — a defining text on resilience to hate and empowerment through education. Her next nonfiction contribution, “Three Summers” (Macmillan Publishers-FSG, 2024), is a story of resilience and sisterhood in the three years leading up to the Bosnian genocide. In July 2023, Sabic-El-Rayess will become president of the Brown Alumni Association.
• Gladys Xiques, a Class of 1994 Brown graduate, is a group managing director and global chief compliance officer at TCW, a global asset management firm with headquarters in Los Angeles. Prior to joining TCW in 2015 as deputy chief compliance officer, Xiques was a director and compliance counsel at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Co., where she covered the capital markets business and the distribution of KKR funds and products. Prior to joining KKR, she was a vice president in the legal department for Barclays Wealth (formerly Lehman Brothers), where she covered the broker dealer and investment advisory businesses in the wealth management division, and a senior counsel for MetLife. Xiques began her career as a securities and litigation associate at the law firm Luboja and Thau LLP. Xiques earned a bachelor’s degree in public policy and American institutions from Brown and a J.D. from George Washington University School of Law. She is a former board member of the George Washington University Law Alumni Association.