Four new members have been elected to the Stanford Board of Trustees and will begin their posts this April.
The new trustees are Michelle Clayman M.B.A. ’79, managing partner and chief investment officer of investment advisory firm New Amsterdam Partners; James Halper ’81, senior advisor at investment firm Leonard Green & Partners; Carol Lam J.D. ’85, senior vice president and deputy general counsel of semiconductor and telecommunications company Qualcomm, Inc.; and Jeffrey Stone ’78, chairman emeritus and senior partner at law firm McDermott Will & Emery.
Eight of the Board’s seats are designated for trustees nominated for five year terms by the Stanford Alumni Association. A new group of four is nominated every two and a half years.
Lam joins the Board after a long career as a U.S. attorney. Lam became the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California after serving San Diego as a Superior Court judge. She worked on cases concerning health care and white collar crime and was instrumental in winning a bribery case against former Congressman Randy Cunningham that linked illegal payoffs to the awarding of arms contracts. Lam served on the board of The Bishop’s School in La Jolla, California.
When Clayman left her job to attend Stanford’s Graduate School of Business (GSB), her father warned that she might never find employment again, an article in Insights by Stanford Business recounts. But Clayman went on from business school to build New Amsterdam Partners, the asset management firm she co-founded, into a $6 billion dollar fund.
Clayman chairs the Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford, a group she endowed with a $3 million gift. She has also served as a member of the GSB Dean’s advisory council.
Halper joins Stanford’s board with a background in finance. He worked at the investment firm Odyssey Partners and later at TDA Capital before settling into his current role at at Leonard Green private equity.
Halper is an active presence on Stanford’s campus and has led numerous class fundraising campaigns. He serves on the advisory board for the Freeman Spogli Institute and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a foreign affairs think tank. Halper is also a chair at the Haas Center for Public Service.
After receiving a J.D. degree from Harvard in 1983, Stone clerked in San Francisco before moving to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago. Specializing in white collar charges, Stone argued cases related to financial and tax related crime, according McDermott, Will & Emery’s website. Additionally, Stone has served as McDermott’s head of its trial and white collar criminal defense departments as well as co-chair of the firm.
On campus, Stone serves on the Bing Overseas Study Program council and on the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Kitchen Cabinet advisory group. He was the national chair of The Stanford Fund for 12 years and organized several class reunions. He has also received the Gold Spike award, Stanford’s highest honor for volunteer work.
“We’re pleased to welcome these new trustees who bring with them a range of perspectives, deep expertise in their respective fields and a wealth of volunteer experience,” said Jeffrey Raikes ’80, chair of the Board of Trustees. “In their years of service to Stanford they have demonstrated a passion for the university and a deep commitment to ensuring its success.”
Correction: A prior version of this article incorrectly stated that Carol Lam was the U.S. Attorney for the district of Southern California, when in fact she was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California. The Daily regrets this error.
Contact Nicholas Midler at midler ‘at’ stanford.edu