New Trustees Elected to the University of Virginia Darden School Foundation Board of Trustees

The University of Virginia Darden School of Business and the Darden School Foundation today announce the election of six new members to the Darden School Foundation Board of Trustees. The new trustees will serve three-year terms, effective immediately.

“We are very excited to welcome Susan Chaplinsky, Cathy Friedman, Kirsti Goodwin, Gordie Grand, Jerry Peng and Susan Sobbott to the board,” said Phil Knisely, chair of the Darden School Foundation Board of Trustees. “Their business experience, leadership capabilities and previous service in other volunteer capacities make them excellent additions to the Darden School Foundation board, and we look forward to working closely with them as trustees.”

Susan Chaplinsky is the Tipton R. Snavely Professor of Business Administration at Darden. She teaches the courses “Corporate Financing” and “Entrepreneurial Finance and Private Equity” in Darden’s MBA program. She is perennially recognized for her outstanding teaching and received the All-University Teaching Award in 2013. She was voted Outstanding Professor in 2007 and faculty marshall in 1996. She has authored or co-authored more than 60 course materials. Her research interests are primarily in capital raising and corporate finance, with specialized interests in private equity, security issuance, capital structure, PIPEs and employee stock ownership plans. She is the author of numerous articles that have appeared in the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Business and Financial Management. Before coming to Darden in 1994, Chaplinsky was a visiting associate professor at Northwestern University, where she was also named the Kellogg Outstanding Professor, and she was an assistant professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. She holds her doctorate in business economics from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Catherine J. Friedman (MBA ’86) has served as an independent consultant serving public and private growth companies since 2006. Prior to that, Friedman held the position of managing director at Morgan Stanley from 1997 to 2006 and head of West Coast Healthcare and co-head of the Biotechnology Practice at Morgan Stanley from 1993 to 2006. She originally joined Morgan Stanley in 1982 and worked in its New York, London and Silicon Valley offices. Friedman has been a director of XenoPort Inc., a publicly traded biopharmaceutical company, since 2007 and also serves on its Audit and Governance committees. Friedman joined the board of Enteromedics, a publicly traded medical device company, in 2007 and also serves as the chair of its Audit Committee. Friedman joined the board of GSV Capital, a publicly traded investment fund, in 2013 and serves as a member of the Valuation Committee and as the chair of the Audit Committee. She has been a board member of the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula for seven years, on which she serves on the Executive and Governance committees. Friedman is a member of the Board of Trustees for Sacred Heart Schools in Atherton. She is a graduate of Harvard University and received an MBA from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. Friedman received the Shermet Award, the C. Stewart Sheppard Service Award and the Faculty Award for Academic Excellence while she was at Darden. She has been married to Jon Duane for almost 25 years, and they have six children.

Kirsti Goodwin (MBA ’02) is currently a community volunteer. Her professional experience includes five years at Spider Management Company (SMC) in Richmond, Virginia, where she was an associate director of investments focused on sourcing long/short equity managers and then the director of investor relations. Prior to SMC, she worked at Global Strategies Investment Management in Atlanta, Georgia, and CornerStone Partners in Charlottesville, Virginia. Goodwin is a former member of the Darden School Alumni Board of Directors and is a member of the Leadership Council at Lafayette College. Additionally, she is a junior board member for The Virginia Home as well as a member of the Home’s Investment Committee, a board member for Bon Secours Richmond Health Care Foundation, a board member of Maymont as well as chairperson of its Investment Committee. She is also on the Investment Committee for the Jenkins Foundation. She received a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics and economics from Lafayette College in 1996 and an MBA from Darden in 2002. She is married to Matthew Goodwin, and they have two daughters, Alice and Evelyn. The family resides in Richmond, Virginia. Her hobbies include golf, running, squash, volunteering and horseback riding.

Gordon Grand (MBA ’75) has been a managing director at Russell Reynolds Associates Inc., a preeminent global executive recruiting firm, for the past 28 years. He began his tenure at Russell Reynolds in 1983 as an executive director. In 1993, Grand became the North American regional coordinator, during which time he opened offices in Mexico City and São Paolo, Brazil, and in 2000, his focus switched from regional management to business sector leadership. Grand graduated from Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts in 1970 and then received his MBA from Darden in 1975. He is a former member of the Darden School Alumni Board of Directors.

Jerry Peng (MBA ’03) is chief executive officer of Four Seas Capital Management, a boutique financial advisory and fund management partnership. The firm focuses on China-related corporate financial advisory deals, as well as private equity investment into TMT, clean technology and high-end manufacturing. Peng served previously as managing director of Goldman Sachs (Asia) LLC, based in Hong Kong with a focus on the origination of financing and derivatives business in the Investment Banking Division (IBD) in China. Prior to joining IBD in May 2011, he managed corporate sales for the Securities Division in China. Peng joined Goldman Sachs as an executive director in 2009 and was named managing director in 2010. Prior to this, Peng was executive director and head of China Onshore Sales for the Fixed Income Division of Morgan Stanley. He also served as the chief representative of the Beijing Representative Office of Morgan Stanley Bank International. Earlier in his career, Peng was a senior vice president and director at Standard Chartered, as well as head of franchise corporate banking in China. Peng is the co-president of the China Alumni Association for Darden, and he serves as vice chair of the Global Advisory Council. He is also president of the University of Virginia’s alumni club in Beijing, China. Peng earned a B.E. in finance from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and an MBA from Darden in 2003.

Susan Sobbott (MBA ’90) is the president of American Express OPEN, which provides $30 billion in credit to small business customers each quarter. She joined American Express in 1990. Since that time, she has played a leadership role in many of the milestones that have directly contributed to the company’s growth. She has devised American Express’ corporate strategy, developed and managed strategic partnerships with many and varied corporate partners; created, launched and marketed innovative new products that attracted new customers; signed new card-accepting establishments including Costco, now one of American Express’ largest merchants; and she is currently the general manager of the company’s second-largest business unit and the American Express advocate for small business success. Sobbott sits on the board of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and the Alumni Admissions group for Georgetown University, and is co-chair of the White House Project Corporate Council. She attended Georgetown University, spent time on Wall Street and later earned an MBA at Darden in 1990, where she was a Shermet Scholar and a Raven Society member.

“Susan Chaplinsky, Cathy Friedman, Kirsti Goodwin, Gordie Grand, Jerry Peng and Susan Sobbott are stellar additions to the Darden School Foundation Board of Trustees,” said Bob Bruner, dean of the Darden School of Business and Charles C. Abbott Professor of Business Administration. “Their service and leadership have proven their dedication to Darden, and we will benefit from their experiences and perspectives on the board of trustees in the future.”