New Overseers Appointed

Six alumni tapped for board

| From BU Today | By Amy Sutherland

Boston University’s new overseers hail from finance, higher education, business, technology, and health care. Photo by Alex S. MacLean

Six new members with deep roots in the Boston University community joined the University’s Board of Overseers this fall. William D. Bloom, Cassandra M. Clay, Gerard H. Cohen, David E. Hollowell, Leif Kvaal, and Peter Levine were appointed by the Board of Trustees at its meeting this fall.

“Boston University is fortunate to have the exceptional leadership, dedication, and good counsel of these new alumni overseers,” says Board of Trustees Chair Robert Knox (CAS’74, GSM’75). “Their great expertise in international business and finance, higher education, and community health care will help us as we strive to strengthen and expand the University’s global reputation for excellence.”

Bloom (CGS’82, SMG’84) is a principal of Jamacha, a private investment company. He is the founder and former vice chairman of the Chelsea Property Group, now a subsidiary of Simon Property Group, which manages outlet centers around the United States and Asia. He and his wife, Ruth, are also trustees of the Jamacha Bloom Family Foundation, which provides financial support to educational institutions, including Boston University.

In 2010, they established the William and Ruth Bloom Scholarship Fund, an annual needs-based scholarship for student-athletes attending the School of Management or the College of General Studies. A former member of the BU rugby team, Bloom serves on the Director’s Council of the Department of Athletics.

Clay (SSW’79), who began teaching at School of Social Work in 1986, is now a professor emerita and a member of the SSW Dean’s Advisory Board. From 2005 to her retirement in 2009, she chaired the clinical practice department. She currently runs a private counseling practice.

She works with several nonprofits, and is on the board of directors of the Institute for Health and Recovery, a Massachusetts nonprofit that develops programs for people affected by substance abuse and mental health disorders. In addition to a master’s in social work from BU, Clay holds a master’s in education from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She and her husband, Phillip Clay, a former chancellor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, live in Jamaica Plain, Mass.

A resident of Framingham, Mass., Cohen (LAW’62) is cofounder and CEO of Western Carriers, which provides warehousing and transportation to the wine and spirits industry. He is a trustee of the Huntington Theatre Company and the Boston Lyric Opera, as well as a major contributor to the Boston Ballet.

Cohen and his family established the Gerard H. Cohen Award at the School of Law, which each year honors a member of the school’s administrative staff for distinguished service. He was given LAW’s Silver Shingle Award in 1994, and on Alumni Weekend 2011 was presented with a Distinguished Alumni Award, the University’s highest honor.

Cohen’s family has strong ties to BU. Three of his four children attended the University and a granddaughter is currently a junior in the College of Communication.

A past president of the BU Alumni Association, Hollowell (ENG’69,’72, GSM’74) is the executive vice president and treasurer emeritus of the University of Delaware, where he was instrumental in streamlining administrative procedures and helped raise $900 million.

Prior to UD, Hollowell worked for 18 years at Boston University, where as vice president for administration he oversaw many major construction and renovation projects. He was made an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects for his role in expanding the campuses of BU and UD. He served on the College of Engineering’s alumni board from 1971 to 1987.

Kvaal (UNI’94) is a senior partner and chief executive officer of Habrok Capital Management, a London-based global equity hedge fund with $1 billion in assets. He began his career in finance as an equity research analyst for Fidelity International Limited in 1994 and became comanager of the company’s Small Cap Fund in 2002. In 2006 he received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University Professors Program.

Levine (ENG’83) is a venture partner at Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm with $1.2 billion in assets that specializes in social media and technology companies. He is also the senior vice president of strategy of Citrix Systems, Inc., which provides computing services for 230,000 organizations worldwide.

In addition to a bachelor’s degree from BU, Levine earned an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management, where he currently is a lecturer.

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