The Bowdoin Orient

A week after President Barry Mills announced that he would be leaving Bowdoin at the end of the 2014-2015 school year, Chair of the Board of Trustees Debbie Barker wrote an all-campus email announcing the chair of the search committee. 

To Members of the Bowdoin Community,

I am very pleased to announce that Trustee Jes Staley ’79, P’11 has agreed to chair the search for Bowdoin’s fifteenth president, and that Eli Orlic, vice president for development and alumni relations, will serve as staff liaison to the search committee.

Jes has earned his place as a respected member of Bowdoin's Board of Trustees and as a principled leader in the world of finance. He understands the importance of the search process and we know that, under his leadership, the search committee will approach the task of identifying Bowdoin’s next president seriously, thoughtfully, and with great enthusiasm. We are so fortunate that he has agreed to lead this effort.

Jes graduated cum laude from Bowdoin in 1979 with a degree in economics. In the nearly thirty-five years since, he has built an extraordinary career in the highly competitive world of finance, while also serving our College and other important institutions and foundations. He joined BlueMountain Capital in New York City last year after thirty-four years at J.P. Morgan, where he was CEO of J.P. Morgan’s Investment Bank and CEO of J.P. Morgan Asset Management. In addition to his service on our Board of Trustees and as chair of the Board’s Investment Committee, Jes currently serves as a director of the Robin Hood Foundation, the Council on Foreign Relations, Code Advisors, and the Investor Advisory Committee on Financial Markets of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Jes knows Bowdoin well as a dedicated and engaged alumnus, as a trustee, and as a proud parent. His daughter Alexa graduated magna cum laude in 2011 with high honors in physics and with a minor in mathematics. Currently a graduate student in physics at Columbia University, her work was featured last week in the Bowdoin Daily Sun. Jes lives in New York City with his wife, Deby. Their younger daughter, Sophia, is a senior at Brown.

We will assemble the rest of the search committee in the coming days. It will be a group representing the many constituencies of the Bowdoin community that will move forward with great confidence in the strength of our College and in our ability to identify Bowdoin’s next leader. We will announce the full committee membership during the May 8-10 campus meetings of the Board of Trustees.

I am grateful to Jes for his willingness to lead our search process, to Eli for her able assistance, and to each of you for your enthusiastic participation in the life of the College.

Sincerely,

Debbie Barker ’80, P’16

Chair, Bowdoin College Board of Trustees