Kathryn Hall succeeds Danielle S. Allen as Board Chair of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Thelma Golden and Joshua Friedman Join the Board

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Mar 06, 2019, 18:11 ET

NEW YORK, March 6, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Kathryn Hall will succeed Danielle S. Allen as the Chair of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's Board of Trustees, the Foundation announced today. Allen announced her retirement after eleven years of service, the last four as Chair. The Foundation also announced the election of museum director Thelma Golden and investor Joshua S. Friedman to the Board of Trustees.

Kathryn Hall joined the Foundation's Board in 2012. She has served as the Board's Vice Chair since March 2018.

Hall is Founder and Co-Chair of Hall Capital Partners LLC, where she serves as a member of the firm's Executive Committee and Investment Review Committee. Before founding the firm in 1994, Hall was a General Partner of Laurel Arbitrage Partners, a risk arbitrage investment partnership that she founded in 1989. Prior to that, she was a General Partner of HFS Management Partners (predecessor to Farallon Capital Partners), HFS Partners I, and Hellman & Friedman. Hall began her career at Morgan Stanley where she worked in both the risk arbitrage and mergers and acquisitions departments.

"The well-being of democratic societies depends on preserving an environment that lets the arts and humanities flourish. No organization in the world understands that better than The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation," said Kathryn Hall. "I look forward to building on Danielle's extraordinary record of success and working closely with the Board to support the Foundation in its critical work."

"I am honored and excited to join the Mellon Foundation Board of Trustees. Mellon has played an extraordinary role in supporting museums and cultural institutions and advancing diversity in the arts and the humanities," said Thelma Golden. "I look forward to supporting this important work as a trustee."

"I am honored to support the continuing work of the Mellon Foundation," said Joshua S. Friedman. "As this extraordinary foundation celebrates its 50th anniversary, it is clear that its original mission of supporting inclusive and democratic societies through investments in the arts and humanities is as relevant as ever."

"On behalf of the entire Foundation team, we wish to thank Danielle Allen for her years of extraordinary service," said Mellon Foundation President Elizabeth Alexander. "We look forward to working closely with Katie Hall, a dedicated trustee who will bring all her insights to bear on the Foundation's development in the coming years. We also extend a warm welcome to our new Board members, whose leadership, grounded in deep and broad experience, will expand all our perspectives."

Danielle S. Allen joined The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's Board in December 2007 and served as the Board's Vice Chair from 2014 to 2015. Throughout her tenure, Allen was an insightful and indefatigable interlocutor on the Foundation's behalf. As the fields of higher education, the humanities, and the arts saw significant challenges and new opportunities, the Foundation benefited immeasurably from Allen's experiences as a scholar, teacher, academic leader, and public intellectual.

"I am thrilled that the remarkable Katie Hall is willing to lead the Board forward in support of our president's compelling vision and that we have recruited such distinguished leaders as Joshua Friedman and Thelma Golden to join the Foundation in this journey," said outgoing Board Chair Danielle S. Allen. "Serving as the Chair of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's Board of Trustees has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, and I am immensely proud of our mission-driven work to advance the cause of the arts and humanities as central to a flourishing democratic and humane society."

Thelma Golden is Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem, the world's leading institution devoted to visual art by artists of African descent. She began her career as a Studio Museum intern in 1987. She then worked at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where she curated the landmark show Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in American Art. In 2000, Golden returned to the Studio Museum as Deputy Director for Exhibitions and Programs. She became director in 2005, and under her leadership, the Studio Museum has gained increased renown as a global leader in the exhibition of contemporary art, a center for innovative curation and education, and a cultural anchor in the Harlem community. Golden holds a BA in Art History and African American Studies from Smith College. She has received honorary doctorates from the City College of New York (2009), San Francisco Art Institute (2008), Smith College (2004), and Moore College of Art and Design (2003). In 2010, President Barack Obama appointed Golden to the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, on which she served from 2010–2016. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Barack Obama Foundation and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Joshua Friedman is Co-Founder, Co-Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Canyon Partners, LLC. Friedman is a graduate of Harvard College (BA, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Physics), Oxford University (MA, honors, Politics and Economics, Marshall Scholar), Harvard Law School (JD, magna cum laude) and Harvard Business School (MBA, Baker Scholar). Prior to forming Canyon, Friedman was Director of Capital Markets for High Yield and Private Placements at Drexel Burnham Lambert. Prior to working at Drexel, he worked in the Mergers and Acquisitions Department of Goldman Sachs in New York.

In 2014, Friedman, along with the firm's co-founder, received Institutional Investor's "Lifetime Achievement" Award. He is a member of the board of directors of Harvard Management Company. He is also a member of Harvard's Committee on University Resources; the Harvard Business School Board of Dean's Advisors; and Harvard University Task Force on Science and Engineering. Friedman also serves as a Trustee for the California Institute of Technology (Caltech); the Los Angeles Philharmonic; the UCLA Hospital Department of Neurosurgery; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Friedman serves on the Investment Committee for the Broad Foundation, the J. Paul Getty Trust and chairs the Caltech and LACMA Investment Committees.

About the Mellon Foundation
Founded in 1969, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation endeavors to strengthen, promote, and, where necessary, defend the contributions of the humanities and the arts to human flourishing and to the well-being of diverse and democratic societies by supporting exemplary institutions of higher education and culture as they renew and provide access to an invaluable heritage of ambitious, path-breaking work. Additional information is available at http://www.mellon.org.

SOURCE The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation