Washington, DC, Oct. 07, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Following its September meeting, the National Gallery of Art Board of Trustees announced that former PepsiCo executive Indra Nooyi was elected as a new trustee and will begin serving immediately. Sharon Rockefeller, a policymaker and leader in public media, has retired as chairman of the board. Rockefeller, who has served as chairman since 2013, becomes trustee emeritus. Philanthropist and business leader David Rubenstein was elected chairman.
President of the National Gallery of Art Mitchell P. Rales said, “On behalf of the trustees, I want to welcome Indra Nooyi to the National Gallery. She begins her board service at one of the most exciting moments in the museum’s history and brings with her decades of leadership and philanthropic experience. I also want to extend our sincere gratitude to Sharon Rockefeller for her service to the board of the National Gallery. Sharon has been a model of philanthropic service, and the museum has benefited greatly from her leadership and generosity. She has shepherded the National Gallery through key moments in its history, including completion of the 75th anniversary endowment campaign, a major renovation and expansion of the East Building, and the search for director Kaywin Feldman.” Rales added, “We are delighted David Rubenstein has agreed to succeed Sharon as chairman. As a trustee David has made a significant impact on the National Gallery and we look forward to his inspired leadership in this new role.”
“We are honored to have Indra Nooyi join us as the board of trustees works together to further the National Gallery’s vision of a museum deeply committed to serving and reflecting the nation,” said Darren Walker, National Gallery of Art trustee and president of the Ford Foundation. “Indra is a trailblazer and visionary, and she will be indispensable as we chart this new path. The board, under Sharon’s watch, is stronger now. We will accomplish what lies ahead and we are all grateful for her dedicated tenure. I am thrilled to work alongside David as he builds on Sharon’s great work as chairman to further refine and inspire our governance as guardians of the nation’s art museum.”
Indra Nooyi
Indra Nooyi was the chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, a Fortune 50 company with operations in more than 180 countries, from 2006 to 2019. In this role, Nooyi was the chief architect of Performance with Purpose, PepsiCo’s pledge to do what’s right for the business by being responsive to the needs of the world. As part of Performance with Purpose, PepsiCo focused on delivering sustained growth by making more nutritious products, limiting its environmental footprint and protecting the planet, and empowering its associates and people in the communities it serves. During Nooyi’s tenure, PepsiCo grew net revenue more than 80 percent and PepsiCo’s total shareholder return was 162 percent.
Nooyi directed the company’s global strategy for more than a decade and led its transformation, including the divestiture of its restaurants into the successful YUM! Brands, Inc., the acquisition of Tropicana and the merger with Quaker Oats that brought the vital Quaker and Gatorade businesses to PepsiCo, the merger with PepsiCo’s anchor bottlers, and the largest international acquisition in PepsiCo’s history: Russian company Wimm-Bill-Dann.
Prior to becoming CEO, Nooyi served as PepsiCo’s president and chief financial officer beginning in 2001, when she was also named to the company’s board of directors. She was responsible for corporate functions, including finance, strategy, business process optimization, corporate platforms and innovation, procurement, investor relations, and information technology. From February 2000 to April 2001, Nooyi was senior vice president and chief financial officer of PepsiCo. She also served as PepsiCo’s senior vice president of corporate strategy and development from 1996 until 2000 and as senior vice president of strategic planning from 1994 until 1996.
Before joining PepsiCo in 1994, Nooyi spent four years as senior vice president of strategy, planning, and strategic marketing for Asea Brown Boveri, a Zurich-based industrials company. She was part of the top management team responsible for the company’s US business as well as its worldwide industrial businesses, representing about $10 billion of its $30 billion in global sales.
Between 1986 and 1990, Nooyi worked for Motorola as vice president and director of corporate strategy and planning, having joined the company as the business development executive responsible for its automotive and industrial electronic group. Prior to Motorola, she spent six years directing international corporate strategy projects at the Boston Consulting Group. Her clients ranged from textiles and consumer goods companies to retailers and specialty chemicals producers. Nooyi began her career in India, where she held product manager positions at Johnson & Johnson and textile firm Mettur Beardsell, Ltd.
Nooyi served as a member of the PepsiCo board of directors from 2001 until 2019. She is now a member of the board of Amazon, where she chairs the audit committee. She also sits on the supervisory board of Philips, where she is a member of the nominating and corporate governance committee. She is a member of the International Advisory Council of Temasek; an independent director of the International Cricket Council; and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is on the dean’s advisory council at the MIT School of Engineering and a member of the MIT Corporation. She also serves on the boards of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the Partnership for Public Service.
Additionally, Nooyi is the Class of 1951 Chair for the Study of Leadership at West Point. In that capacity, she helps enhance the ability of both the department of behavioral sciences and leadership and the US Military Academy to develop leaders of character. She also serves as an advisor to several early-stage companies.
She is the author of My Life in Full: Work, Family and Our Future, published in September 2021.
Nooyi has received 15 honorary degrees. In 2007, the government of India awarded her the Padma Bhushan, the country’s third-highest civilian honor. That same year, the US State Department named her an Outstanding American by Choice. In 2019, her portrait was inducted into the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery.
She holds a BS from Madras Christian College, an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta, and a master of public and private management from Yale University.
Sharon Percy Rockefeller
Sharon Percy Rockefeller has served the public media community for more than 40 years as a leader and policymaker. She has been president and CEO of WETA, Washington, DC’s flagship public television and radio station since 1989. Rockefeller, a 2019 National Medal of Arts recipient for her extraordinary leadership and advocacy in the arts and public media, continues to guide WETA to outstanding accomplishments in broadcasting, production, digital education resources, and civic engagement. Before assuming the top post at WETA, she was a member of the WETA board of trustees for seven years, including three years as chairman; a member of the board of directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for 12 years, including four years as chairman; and a director of the board of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) for 19 years.
Rockefeller joined the National Gallery of Art Board of Trustees in 2005 and has served as its chairman since 2013. In this role, Rockefeller presided over meetings of the board, which approved any work of art that entered the collection to maintain the National Gallery’s high standards of quality. She has been a cochair of the National Gallery’s Development Committee; and is also a member of the Trustees’ Council, Collectors Committee, Exhibition Circle, and Legacy Circle.
Sharon Percy Rockefeller and Senator John D. “Jay” Rockefeller IV of West Virginia have been supporters of the National Gallery since 1990. The Rockefellers have helped with the museum’s development efforts, making gifts for the New Century Fund as well as for more recent fundraising campaigns. They have given generously to the National Gallery’s art acquisition program, helping to fund the purchase of Leo Villareal’s Multiverse (2008) and Adolph Menzel’s pastel An Infant Asleep in His Crib (1848) from the Wolfgang Ratjen Collection. The Rockefellers have also supported two special exhibitions: Dan Flavin: A Retrospective (2004) and Prayers and Portraits: Unfolding the Netherlandish Diptych (2006).
A graduate of Stanford University, Sharon Percy Rockefeller is active in the arts, education, government, and women’s issues. She serves on the boards of the Rockefeller Foundation and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and is currently the president of MoMA’s International Council. She serves as trustee emeritus of the Johns Hopkins Medicine board, is a member of the National Academy of Medicine president’s advisory council, and is a former member of the Sibley Memorial Hospital board. Rockefeller is also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a member of the Federal City Council and a member and former chairman of the Stanford in Washington council.
Rockefeller is a former member of the board of directors of PepsiCo, a position she held for 28 years. She previously served as a member of the board of directors of the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, the Rockefeller Brother Fund, and the Rockefeller Family Office and as chair of the Rockefeller Cousins Association. She was a member of the board of trustees of the Phillips Collection, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Stanford University, the University of Chicago, and the George Washington University. She also previously served as a member of the board of directors of Sotheby’s Inc. Formerly, she served as a member of the Kennedy Center Community and Friends board, the Smithsonian American Art Museum Commission, the Harvard Art Museums collections committee, the Smithsonian Associates, and the Smithsonian American Art Commission.
Rockefeller received the Charles Frankel Prize in 1994 from the National Endowment for the Humanities in recognition of her outstanding achievements in promoting the arts and humanities in her public broadcasting career. She has also received the Distinguished Broadcaster Award. Rockefeller has also been honored with the Women of Vision Award from Women in Film and Video and the CINE Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2017, Rockefeller was awarded the Archives of American Art Medal.
In West Virginia, Rockefeller served for 10 years on the board of the West Virginia Educational Broadcasting Authority. She was the chairman and founder of Mountain Artisans (a quilting business for low-income artisans), served on the board of directors of the Sunrise Museum, and worked as a teacher’s assistant for the Head Start program in Coal Branch Heights.
David M. Rubenstein
David M. Rubenstein is a Washington, DC, philanthropist and co-founder co-chairman of the Carlyle Group, a global alternative asset manager. He has been involved with the National Gallery of Art since 1999, when he became a patron member of the National Gallery of Art Circle through 2003. In 2005, Rubenstein made a substantial gift toward scholarly publications and curatorial fellowships. He has been on the National Gallery of Art Board of Trustees since 2015 and served as a member of the Trustees’ Council from 2005 to 2010. In 2012, Rubenstein generously donated $10 million towards the expansion of the National Gallery’s East Building.
Rubenstein is chairman of the boards of trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Council on Foreign Relations; a fellow of the Harvard Corporation; a trustee of the University of Chicago, the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Brookings Institution, and the World Economic Forum; a director of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and president of the Economic Club of Washington, DC.
Rubenstein is a member of the American Philosophical Society and the Business Council, member and chairman of the Harvard Global Advisory Council and the James Madison Council of the Library of Congress, member of the Harvard Business School board of dean’s advisors, member and former chairman of the advisory board of the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University, and member of the board of the World Economic Forum Global Shapers Community. He has also served as chairman of the board of trustees of Duke University and cochairman of the board of the Brookings Institution.
Rubenstein is an original signer of the Giving Pledge; a significant donor to all of the above-mentioned nonprofit organizations; and a recipient of the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy and MoMA’s David Rockefeller Award, among other philanthropic awards.
Rubenstein has been a leader in patriotic philanthropy through transformative gifts for the restoration or repair of the Washington Monument, Monticello, Montpelier, Mount Vernon, Arlington House, the Iwo Jima Memorial, the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, the National Archives, the National Zoo, the Library of Congress, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Rubenstein is the host of The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations on Bloomberg TV and PBS.
Rubenstein, a native of Baltimore, graduated magna cum laude in 1970 from Duke University, where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa. He graduated in 1973 from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was an editor of the Law Review.
From 1973 to 1975, Rubenstein practiced law in New York with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. From 1975 to 1976, he served as chief counsel to the US Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on constitutional amendments. From 1977 to 1981, during the Carter administration, Rubenstein was deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy. After his White House service, he practiced law in Washington with Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman). He co-founded The Carlyle Group in 1987.
National Gallery of Art Board of Trustees
The National Gallery of Art is governed by a nine-member board of trustees. The board is composed of five general trustees, who are appointed to staggered 10-year terms and four ex officio trustees. As of October 1, 2021, the National Gallery of Art Board of Trustees includes ex officio members Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts Jr., Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen, and Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution Lonnie G. Bunch III as well as private members Mitchell P. Rales, president of the National Gallery of Art; Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen; Indra Nooyi; David M. Rubenstein (chairman); and Darren Walker.
