MIT’s board elects its next chairman
Millard was Lehman Bros. exec
The MIT Corporation named its next chairman, Robert B. Millard ’73, at last Friday’s elections. He will assume his new role as the head of MIT’s board of trustees in October.
Millard is the chairman of Realm Partners, a hedge fund launched after the demise of Lehman Brothers, where Millard had become a managing director in 1983. He has held various positions within the MIT Corporation and the MIT Investment Management Company since 2003, according to MIT.
The current chairman of the MIT Corporation, John Reed ’61, turned 75 earlier this year and is therefore stepping down per tradition, according to Millard. Reed became chairman in June 2010.
In a statement, President L. Rafael Reif praised both Millard and Reed.
“John led a smooth transition from President Hockfield’s presidency to mine, and he played a central role in preparing the Institute for the next capital campaign.” Reif said, referring to an ongoing fundraising effort expected to inject billions of dollars into MIT’s endowment. “To these and other critical pieces of MIT business, John brought imagination, focus, and a steady hand.”
And of Millard, Reif said: “Humble, a critical thinker, a problem solver, and a doer, Bob has a way of constructively asking insightful questions and of getting people to focus on the most important long-term strategic issues.”
Millard holds a bachelor’s in architecture from MIT and an MBA from Harvard. Apart from his work at investment firms, he is the president of a timber company in Maine and a co-founder of L-3 Communications, an electronics and communications supplier.
Both Millard and Reed have agreed to be interviewed by The Tech at a later date.
The Corporation also elected 11 term members last week, all of them current or former top executives in the private sector.