Leadership
Our Leadership Team
SIR PETER CRANE, President
Peter Crane is a renowned botanical researcher and evolutionary plant scientist, with experience leading some of the most prestigious and influential scientific organizations in the fields of plant study and natural history. His work focuses on the diversity of plant life including its origin, fossil history, current status, conservation and use. He previously served as Director of the Field Museum in Chicago, Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the U.K. and Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. You can read more about Crane here.
Board of Directors
W. TAYLOR REVELEY III, Chairman
Taylor Reveley served as the 27th president of William & Mary College, and as former dean of William & Mary Law School. After graduating with a JD from the University of Virginia in 1968, Reveley clerked for Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. and went on to build a career specializing in administrative law, commercial nuclear power and the constitutional law of war powers. Reveley devotes much of his extracurricular time to non-profit organizations, including serving on the boards of Princeton University, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. You can read more about Reveley here.
LEWIS W. BERNARD
Lewis Bernard is an accomplished financier with a deep commitment to advancing education and natural science. He served as the Chief Administrative and Financial Officer for Morgan Stanley & Co., Inc. for six years and was the founding Vice Chairman of the Central Park Conservancy Board. He is the founder and chairman of Classroom Inc., as well as Chairman of the Board for the American Museum of Natural History. He was formerly Chair of the Finance and Investment Committee of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. You can read more about Bernard here.
DOROTHY ROBINSON
Dorothy Robinson, an attorney, is a longstanding leader in the higher education legal community, having served as Yale University’s Vice President and General Counsel until her retirement from Yale in 2016. Robinson built and led Yale’s in-house legal team and served for three decades as chief counsel to the University’s governing board. In addition to managing Yale’s legal affairs, she oversaw Yale’s federal relations and its enterprise risk management program. She advised on a broad range of university initiatives, including community partnerships in the City of New Haven, research and educational collaborations with domestic and international institutions, online education, and numerous university-related initiatives. She currently serves as a member of the Board of Managers of Swarthmore College. Previously, Robinson was a trustee of Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association, Inc. (TIAA) and a director of TIAA Bank, FSB. She also has been a board member of numerous other organizations within education and the non-profit sector.
Rebecca E. Duseau
Becky is an accomplished investment professional with over 25 years of investment experience. In 2000, along with two partners, she founded Adamas Partners, LLC, a manager of 2 hedge fund products. Becky has a wealth of Board experience as a nonprofit board member and advisor to Board investment clients. Becky holds an MBA from the Amos Tuck Graduate School of Business Administration where she was a Tuck Scholar with distinction and recipient of the Charles and Lillian Leach Award for Excellence in Finance. Her BA, cum laude, is from Tufts University.
Julia A. Reidhead
Julia A. Reidhead is Chairman and President of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, the largest independent and employee-owned book publishing firm in the United States. She is the first woman to lead the company and to oversee all of its groups and departments, including College, Trade, Norton Ltd., W. W. Norton Canada, and the imprints Liveright, Countryman Press, Norton Professional Books, and Norton Young Readers. Ms. Reidhead previously served as Vice President and Publishing Director of Norton’s College Department, where, for more than thirty years, she was the principal in-house editor of the lauded Norton Anthologies, among them The Norton Anthology of English Literature and first editions of The Norton Shakespeare, The Norton Anthology of African American Literature and The Norton Anthology of World Religions. On the Trade side, Ms. Reidhead has edited works by Adrienne Rich, Pauli Murray, Anne Enright, Russell Shorto, and Elizabeth Samet. Ms. Reidhead is currently chair of the Association of American Publishers, serves on the board of the National Book Foundation, and formerly chaired the Board of Governors of Yale University Press.
Lisa W. Hess
Lisa Hess is an experienced investment professional and board director, engaged in the finance industry for more than 40 years. Her career began at Goldman Sachs in 1978, having graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Hispanic Literature and an M.B.A. degree from the University of Chicago. She has worked as Chief Investment Officer of Loews Corporation and Managing Partner of SkyTop Capital Management, and also sits on the boards of TIAA, TIAA Bank, and Radian Corporation. From 2002-2010, Lisa wrote the column, “Absolute Return” for Forbes magazine. She has also been honored to serve on the US Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee and for many years was a member of the Harvard Libraries Visiting Committee.
Marcia Marsh
Marcia was the Chief Operating Officer for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF-US). As COO, she oversaw the execution of WWF’s strategy and operating systems and led government affairs and policy, private sector engagement, development and marketing and communications efforts. Building on her prior consulting career, Marcia served as one of the WWF global network’s lead change managers, helping to align people, processes, and technology with an ambitious strategy to bring conservation to scale. With a personal passion for community service, she helped to launch and drive the CARE/WWF Alliance, an innovative partnership that is creating new models of addressing poverty alleviation, food security and conservation in one holistic approach. Before WWF, Marcia was a Price Waterhouse tax partner, Practice leader for Integrated Solutions and International Consulting at Watson Wyatt and the Vice President for Government Transformation at the Partnership for Public Service.
Michael Donoghue
Michael Donoghue is an evolutionary biologist who is currently Sterling Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Research Professor at Yale University. He first joined Yale in 2000 as the G. Evelyn Hutchinson Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and over the past 20 years has served as Chair of the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department, Director of the Peabody Museum of Natural History, Director of Yale’s Marsh Botanical Garden, and Director of the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies. His research concerns the diversity and evolutionary history of plants, and connections between phylogeny, biogeography, and ecology. He has been active in movements to reconstruct the Tree of Life and to link evolution to ecology and biodiversity conservation. He has published over 300 scientific papers and two books, and mentored over 50 postdoctoral associates and graduate students.