Corporation Expansion

Paul J. Finnegan

Paul J. Finnegan ’75, M.B.A. ’82, has been elected a Fellow of the Harvard Corporation, the senior governing board, effective July 1, expanding its ranks to 11, en route to the 13 members planned for in reforms unveiled in December 2010; three new members were appointed in May 2011. (He will relinquish his current seat on the Board of Overseers, the junior governing board.)

Finnegan, a past president of the Harvard Alumni Association (2006-2007), served during the challenging transition from the presidency of Lawrence H. Summers through the interim return of Derek Bok to Massachusetts Hall and then the appointment of Drew Faust. He thus brings to the Corporation both deeper alumni ties and a closer connection to the Overseers, where he has chaired the committee on finance, administration, and management. He has also been a member of the Committee on University Resources, a group of leading Harvard donors (he is one of the planning committee co-chairs for the forthcoming Harvard capital campaign); reunion co-chair for his College class; and chair of the Harvard Business School Fund. His Harvard perspective is multigenerational: his father, J. Paul Finnegan (now deceased), graduated in the class of 1946. Paul and Mary Finnegan’s middle child, Paul M., graduated from the College last March.

Finnegan helped found and is co-CEO of Madison Dearborn Partners, a Chicago-based private-equity firm. He also chairs the Chicago advisory board of Teach for America, and serves on that organization’s national board of trustees.

Read a full report. 

You might also like

“It’s Tournament Time”

Harvard women’s basketball prepares for Ivy Madness.

A Harvard Agenda Shaped by Speech

The work underway in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Dialogue, not Debate

American University’s Lara Schwartz, J.D. ’98, teaches productive disagreement.

Most popular

alt text here

AWOL from Academics

Behind students' increasing pull toward extracurriculars

Lola Mullaney, Coach Carrie Moore, and Elena Rodriguez

“It’s Tournament Time”

Harvard women’s basketball prepares for Ivy Madness.

View of Harvard University campus from the Charles River

Why Americans Love to Hate Harvard

The president emeritus on elite universities’ academic accomplishments—and a rising tide of antagonism

More to explore

Winthrop Bell

Brief life of a philosopher and spy: 1884-1965

Talking about Talking

Fostering healthy disagreement

A Dogged Observer

Novelist and psychiatrist Daniel Mason takes the long view.