The Yale Board of Trustees — known formally as the Yale Corporation — has named its next senior trustee and will welcome a new member on July 1.
Marta L. Tellado ’02 Ph.D., the former president and chief executive officer of Consumer Reports, will serve as senior trustee starting July 1, and Carter Brooks Simonds ’99, a managing partner of the private investment firm Four Pines Partners, has been appointed successor trustee. Tellado has been a member of the board since 2022.
Members of the board of trustees, the university’s principal governing body, act as fiduciaries for the university — ensuring that Yale is guided by sound policies and practices and equipped with adequate resources to further its mission. In doing so, the board balances the needs of today’s faculty, students, alumni, and staff with those of generations to come.
The senior trustee serves as a primary link between the trustees and the university president.
“Marta brings to this new role her extensive experience in leading complex organizations and her deep commitment to Yale’s mission and to the people of our community who power it,” said Yale President Maurie McInnis. “In working with her on the board, I’ve seen firsthand her appreciation for Yale as a place where knowledge is created, disseminated, and preserved and where our discoveries are turned into innovations that transform the world. Her understanding of our community and her thoughtful leadership will benefit the board and the university as a whole.
“And I am delighted to welcome Carter to Yale’s board of trustees,” McInnis added. “She has shown her dedication to strengthening Yale in countless ways, including with her long service on the Yale Investment Committee. I look forward to working with her in this new role.”
Joshua Bekenstein ’80, the current senior trustee for the Yale Corporation, is completing his service on the board, which he joined in 2013; he has been senior trustee since 2021. “I am deeply grateful to Josh for his years of selfless, conscientious service to Yale,” said McInnis. “His steady leadership and wise counsel through times of change, including a Yale presidential transition, have been invaluable in ensuring that Yale can continue to fulfill its mission, both now and in the future.”
The trustees
Throughout her career, Tellado has sought transformational solutions to the complex challenges facing modern society, working extensively with policymakers in Washington, D.C., in both government and nonprofit organizations.
At Consumer Reports, the largest nonprofit consumer organization in the world, which Tellado led from 2014 until 2024, she strategically guided its research, journalism, and policy expertise to inform consumers, improve products, and encourage the regulatory and competitive practices of a fair marketplace.
Prior to joining Consumer Reports, she was vice president for global communications at the Ford Foundation (from 2004 to 2014). There she oversaw the foundation’s strategic communications and outreach on both domestic and international grant portfolios. She also previously served as vice president of communications at the Partnership for Public Service and was director of public policy programs at the Center for National Policy.
Tellado also founded and directed the first bipartisan domestic public policy forum at the Aspen Institute and in 2018 was named among the “Top Women in Media” by Folio Magazine. She is a board member of the Omidyar Network, a philanthropic organization whose mission is to guide the digital future toward “the greatest good for the greatest number of people.”
Tellado earned her bachelor’s degree in 1981 from Fairleigh Dickinson University, where she served as a trustee from 2013 until 2022, and her Ph.D. in political science from Yale in 2002. She has also served as a member of the Yale University Council. She lives in New York City.
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Simonds has long used her expertise in guiding financial investment to help advance the mission of educational and philanthropic endeavors.
She is currently managing partner of Four Pines Partners, a private investment firm focusing on public equities. She previously worked as a partner at Blue Ridge Capital, from 2006 to 2017, and as an analyst at Tiger Management.
Simonds is a member of the Yale Investment Committee, which she joined in 2011, and in 2021 served on the search committee to select Yale’s next chief investment officer. She also serves on the investment committees of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which seeks to create new technology to advance scientific progress in the area of human health, and of Deerfield Academy, where she is a trustee.
Simonds received her B.A. in economics from Yale University in 1999, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and wrote her thesis under the supervision of David Swensen, then the university’s chief investment officer. She received an M.B.A from Harvard Business School in 2004, graduating with high distinction as a Baker Scholar.
She lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, with her family.
