Huntington Theatre Company Announces New Board Members

Huntington Theatre Company has announced the election of 4 new board members, and the promotion of two Huntington Advisors to Trustee level. The election took place during the Huntington's year-end meeting of the Board of Trustees and Advisors on June 8, 2020.

Tony, Emmy, and Grammy Award winner and a director of Huntington productions Billy Porter is a newly elected Trustee, along with D. Randolph (Randy) Peeler, business leader and senior advisor at Berkshire Partners, and executive and life coach, and media consultant Kate Taylor who have previously served as Huntington Advisors and have now been promoted to become Trustees. The newly elected Advisors are philanthropist and activist Evelyn Peterman, education expert Jacqueline Smethurst, and global business leader George Yip.

"We are thrilled to welcome each of these new board members to the Huntington family," says Sharon Malt, President of the Huntington's Board of Trustees. "We are incredibly grateful that they will lend their support, their enthusiasm, and their expertise to the Huntington at this time of incredible and crucial change for the company."

The Huntington Theatre Company Board of Trustees and Advisors is made up of 40 Trustees who serve 3-year terms and have fiduciary and governance responsibilities for the company, as well as 43 Advisors who serve 3-year terms and assist in guiding the leadership of the company and serve as advocates and ambassadors. The Huntington's Board of Trustees and Advisors plays an active role in the strategic leadership of the company, providing both financial support and expertise in a variety of areas.

ABOUT THE NEW BOARD MEMBERS:

D. Randolph (Randy) Peeler (Trustee) is a senior advisor at Berkshire Partners, having joined the company in 1996 and serving as managing director from 2000 until 2017. Previously he worked at Health Advances where he co-founded a privately-owned healthcare service company, as a special assistant for the assistant secretary of economic policy in the US Department of the Treasury, and as a consultant with Cannon Associates and Bain & Co. Currently, he serves on the board of several privately-held companies as well as National Vision Inc (EYE) and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston. He received an AB from Duke and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Evelyn Peterman (Advisor) is a philanthropist and activist with a passion for the arts and human rights issues. She is a stay-at-home mother and resides in Lexington, Massachusetts with her husband and twins.

Billy Porter (Trustee) is a Tony, Emmy, and Grammy Award-winning entertainer and fashion icon. He is best known for originating the roles of Lola in Kinky Boots (for which he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical) and Pray Tell in the FX series "Pose" (for which he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor). At the Huntington, he has directed critically acclaimed productions of The Colored Museum by George C. Wolfe (2015), Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks (2017), and most recently, the world premiere of The Purists by Dan McCabe (2019).

Jacqueline Smethurst (Advisor) is the former head of Northfield Mount Hermon School and has consulted widely on non-profit governance, guiding the successful establishment of independent and charter schools in California and Louisiana. With her husband David Drinkwater, she founded Wingspan Partnerships, a non-profit that narrows the education gap through partnerships between public and private schools; in 2013, it became part of the National Network of Schools in Partnership. She holds BA and MA degrees from Oxford University and her doctorate from the University of Massachusetts, currently serves as president of the board of Peterborough Players, and is an honorary fellow of St. Hilda's College, Oxford.

Kate Taylor (Trustee) is an executive and life coach and also does media consulting. She retired from WGBH in 2014 where she had a long and distinguished career creating and producing many award-winning public media projects while in her position as Senior Executive Producer for Children's Television and Media. She has also served on various boards including the Boston Children's Museum, Wheelock College, and 826/Boston. She is engaged as a volunteer with Communities for Restorative Justice, working in the criminal justice system. She holds a BA and MSE from the University of Pennsylvania and is certified to coach by the Coach Training Institute. She lives in Brookline with her husband Ben.

George Yip (Advisor) is emeritus professor of marketing and strategy at Imperial College London and a distinguished visiting professor at the D'Amore-McKim School of Business, Northeastern University. He serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of MIT Sloan Management Review and is former dean of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, in the Netherlands. He is a sought-after speaker on China innovation and global strategy, and is the author of several books, published in ten languages. He is also a former vice president and director of research & innovation at Capgemini Consulting, and has held faculty positions at Cambridge University, Harvard Business School, and UCLA. He received his BA and MA in economics from Cambridge University, and his MBA and DBA from Harvard. He grew up in Hong Kong, Myanmar, and England, and has dual citizenship in the USA and UK.

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