Walsh elected as alumni fellow; Rice named as successor trustee

Kate Walsh ’77 B.A., ’79 M.P.H., president and chief executive officer of Boston Medical Center, has been elected  an alumni fellow of the Yale Corporation — the university’s board of trustees — in a worldwide balloting of alumni, President Peter Salovey has announced.

In addition, Salovey announced that E. John Rice Jr. ‘88 B.A., founder and CEO of Management Leadership for Tomorrow, has been appointed a successor trustee, filling the vacancy left by Peter B. Dervan ’72 Ph.D., whose term expires in June. For the past six years, Rice has served as alumni fellow of the board.

Both appointments are effective July 1.

“Kate has my sincere gratitude for her willingness to serve as an alumni fellow, and we are truly fortunate that John is taking on this new role on the board of trustees,” said Salovey. “I am also immensely grateful to Peter for completing nine years of devoted service to Yale. He brought invaluable wisdom and insights during a time when the university planned for a bold new era in science.”

Brief biographies of the trustees follow:

Kate Walsh joined Boston Medical Center (BMC) in 2010. BMC is a private, not-for-profit academic medical center that disproportionately serves low-income patients and anchors the BMC Health System with an operating revenue of $2.8 billion. In her role, Walsh leads the BMC and the Boston Medical Center HealthNet Plan, which provides health insurance and access to care to nearly 300,000 low-income individuals. In partnership with the dean, she also oversees the faculty practice plan for Boston University School of Medicine. Under her direction, BMC has transitioned from significant operating losses to financial stability, launched its campus redesign plan, and developed the Boston Accountable Care Organization as part of BMC’s ongoing commitment to “exceptional care, without exception.”

As an undergraduate, Walsh played on the women’s ice hockey team and volunteered at the Fair Haven Community Health Center. She graduated from Yale College in 1977 and received a degree in hospital management from the Yale School of Public Health two years later. For nearly a decade, she served in a variety of positions in New York City hospitals. She subsequently became senior vice president of medical services and of the cancer center at Massachusetts General Hospital; chief operating officer of Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and executive vice president and chief operating officer of Brigham Health.

The alumna is the incoming board chair of the Massachusetts Hospital Association and a director of the Boston Public Health Commission, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and Pine Street Inn, a Boston-based organization that supports and advocates for homeless individuals. She received the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce’s 2014 Pinnacle Award for Excellence in Health Care, Arts, and Education.

At Yale, she served on the Corporation Committee on the School of Medicine and is currently a member of the University Council.

John Rice is CEO and founder of Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT), a national nonprofit organization that equips underrepresented minority college students and professionals with skills, coaching, and relationships required to become leaders in corporations, nonprofits, and entrepreneurial ventures. MLT serves over 1,000 fellows annually and partners with 100 leading employers to strengthen their diverse leadership pipelines.

At Yale, Rice founded a mentoring program for teenage fathers at Hillhouse High School in New Haven and was a three-year starter on the men’s basketball team. He earned an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in 1992, after which he worked at The Walt Disney Company. He then joined the National Basketball Association, initially focused on building the NBA’s brand in Latin America and later as managing director of NBA Japan based in Tokyo.

He is a director of Walker & Dunlop, a NYSE real-estate finance company, and serves on several non-profit boards including the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and venture philanthropy fund New Profit. He was appointed to President Obama’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans.

Rice was elected alumni fellow in 2011 and is a former member of the University Council.

Yale Board of Trustees

The university’s board of trustees (formally the Yale Corporation) is Yale’s governing and policy-making body. The trustees act as fiduciaries to ensure that the university’s academic and administrative leadership are guided by sound policies and practices, with adequate resources, to further Yale’s mission. The trustees are attentive to balancing the needs of today’s faculty, students, alumni, and staff with those of future generations.

The board has 17 regular members: the president of the university, who chairs the board, 10 appointed successor trustees, and six elected alumni trustees (formally known as “alumni fellows”). In addition, the governor and lieutenant governor of the State of Connecticut are board members ex officio.

The board meets at least five times during the year, usually in New Haven.

Brief biographical sketches of the other members of the board are available online.