New Trustees, Overseers, and Trustee Emeritus Announced

Alumni bring diverse backgrounds to the table

| From BU Today | By Bostonia staff

Boston University’s new trustees and overseers hail from the fields of business, finance, art, medicine, and law. Photo by Kalman Zabarsky

Five new faces from the worlds of business, finance, art, medicine, and law will join the University’s Board of Trustees and Board of Overseers this fall, trustee chairman Robert Knox has announced.

Elected this past spring to the Board of Trustees were Stephen Zide (LAW’86), managing director of Bain Capital LLC, and Rajen Kilachand (GSM’74), chairman and president of Dodsal Group. Newly elected overseers were Warren J. Adelson (CAS’63, GRS’64), a world-renowned dealer of American impressionist art and the owner and president of Adelson Galleries in New York; Thomas M. Bowers (CGS’84, SMG’86, LAW’89,’91), head of Deutsche Bank Private Wealth Management for the Americas; and Reema R. Shetty (SMG’01), director of New Medical Center Group, a multinational business conglomerate based in Abu Dhabi. All five graduated from the University, and two are parents of current BU students. The new trustees begin their terms in September.

“These outstanding alumni will bring to the governing boards of the University their extraordinary expertise as leaders in diverse global industries and the arts,” says Knox (CAS’74, GSM’75). “We look forward to working with them as we seek to strengthen the University’s reputation as an international center for academic excellence.”

Knox also reports that former trustee John R. Robinson (CAS’61, LAW’64), president of the Widgeon Point Charitable Foundation and Skerryvore Foundation, Inc., has been appointed a trustee emeritus.

“John Robinson’s contributions to the University’s governance and its programs are exemplary,” Knox says. “We are very grateful for his continued counsel and support.”

Stephen Zide (LAW’86)

Zide is a managing director of Bain Capital LLC, a global private investment firm headquartered in Boston that manages several pools of capital, including private equity, venture capital, public equity, high-yield assets, and mezzanine capital. Since Bain Capital’s inception in 1984, its competitive advantage has been grounded in a people-intensive, value-added investment approach that has enabled the firm to deliver industry-leading returns for investors. Bain Capital has made private equity investments and add-on acquisitions in more than 300 companies in a variety of industries around the world, such as Toys “R” Us, Inc., Warner Music Group, Sealy, Burger King, Dunkin’ Brands, and SunGard. Zide has served on the board of directors of a number of Bain Capital’s portfolio companies, among them such worldwide market leaders as Styron, Sensata Technologies, Inc., and Innophos, Inc.

Chairman and president of Dodsal Group, one of the leading energy and infrastructure development companies in the world, Kilachand has owned the company since 1995. Its operations include engineering, infrastructure, and construction projects in the Middle East, petrochemical and natural gas pipeline projects in India and North Africa, hydrocarbon exploration, alternative energy, and mining ventures in Africa, and a restaurant division in India that operates 62 fast-food franchises in 11 cities. The company was founded in Mumbai, India, in 1948.

Warren J. Adelson (CAS’63, GRS’64)

Adelson is a dealer of American art and the owner and president of Adelson Galleries in New York City, a gallery with origins on Boston’s Newbury Street in the mid-1960s. An expert on the work of John Singer Sargent, he is the author of several books about Sargent and his peers, including Mary Cassatt, Childe Hassam, and Maurice Prendergast. Adelson Galleries specializes in the sale and exhibition of 19th- through 21st-century American art and represents several contemporary painters, including Jamie Wyeth, Scott Young, Andrew Stevovich, and Winfred Rembert. Adelson Galleries sponsors the Sargent and Cassatt catalogue raisonné projects, as well as other ongoing research in American art. Adelson serves on the board of directors of the Archives of American Art, Washington, D.C., and is a former member of the Art Advisory Panel of the Internal Revenue Service. He and his wife, Jan, are the parents of a College of Arts & Sciences junior.

Bowers is head of Private Wealth Management for Deutsche Bank, responsible for the U.S. and Latin American businesses. He was previously managing director and chief operating officer of Deutsche Bank Private Wealth Management, and prior to that was global chief operating officer for Citigroup Private Bank. He is the parent of a BU junior.

Reema R. Shetty (SMG’01)

Shetty (right) is director of New Medical Center Group (NMC), a multinational business conglomerate based in Abu Dhabi and comprising companies in diverse fields, including health care, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, engineering, financial services, hospitality, information technology, advertising, and public relations. NMC was founded in 1978 as one of the first modern hospitals in Abu Dhabi. It has become a major provider of state-of-the-art private health care in the region and treats more than one million patients a year.

Robinson, a former University trustee and board secretary, is president of the Widgeon Point Charitable Foundation and Skerryvore Foundation, Inc., philanthropic organizations that provide funding for programs related to environmental protection, higher education, human services, religion, and the arts. Prior to his retirement, Robinson was counsel for Connecticut Bank & Trust (1984–86); senior executive vice president and director of Sperry & Hutchinson Company, a financial services company that specialized in trading stamps, sales incentive promotions, insurance, and consumer durables; and an assistant U.S. attorney, Southern District of New York (1966–70). A specialist in environmental law, he is certified to practice law before the U.S. District Court of New York (Southern District), the U.S. Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. Robinson was a University trustee from 1976 to 1992.

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