Duke names seven new Board of Trustees members

Seven new members joined Duke’s Board of Trustees on July 1. 

The new trustees include Thomas Lister, former co-managing partner of Permira; Sharon Marcil, North America regional chair, managing director and senior partner at Boston Consulting Group; Gregory Palmer, resident bishop of The United Methodist Church’s West Ohio Conference; David Taylor, former chairman, president and CEO of Procter & Gamble; Andrew Dillon, shareholder at Nathan Sommers Jacobs and president-elect of Duke Alumni; Warren Lattimore, a doctoral candidate in theology at the Divinity School; and Sydney Hunt, Pratt ‘23 and current Stanford doctoral student.

As business innovators, religious leaders and current students, the new trustees will contribute their unique perspectives to the Board as it oversees the University’s finances, educational policy and long-term strategy. The trustees will continue working on projects related to sustainability, Duke-Durham relations and the University’s Centennial in 2024.

Lister, Marcil, Palmer and Taylor will serve six-year terms from 2023 to 2029. Dillon will serve for a four-year term. Hunt and Lattimore, both Young Trustees, will serve for three and two years, respectively.

Dillon will spend his first two years as an observer of the board, and Hunt and Lattimore will spend their first year observing before becoming voting members.

Lister, Trinity ‘86, graduated from Duke with a double major in chemistry and political science and obtained an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1991. He joined global investment firm Permira and acted as head of its North American business in 2005. He served as the co-managing partner of Permira from 2008 to 2021 and recently retired in 2022. 

Lister currently serves as a senior advisor to Canada Pension Plan, co-chairs the Hospital for Special Surgery, has served on the Board of Visitors for Trinity College since 2015 and joined the Duke University Health System Board of Directors on July 1. 

Marcil, Trinity ‘88, graduated magna cum laude with a degree in economics from Duke and went on to receive an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School. She now serves as managing director, senior partner and North America Chair of Boston Consulting Group, leading the firm in the United States, Mexico and Canada. Consulting Magazine named her one of the “Top 25 Most Influential Consultants” and one of five “Women Leaders in Consulting.” 

Taylor, Pratt ’80, graduated from Duke with a degree in electrical engineering. In 1980, he started his career at Procter & Gamble working in production supply. He ultimately became Procter & Gamble’s chairman, president and CEO from 2015 to 2021 and its board’s executive chairman from 2021-22. Taylor currently serves as a senior operating adviser at Clayton Dubilier & Rice LLC, a private equity investment firm. 

Throughout his career, Taylor has served as the Chairman of The Alliance to End Plastic Waste and as a member on the Board for Feeding America and the Cincinnati Freestore Foodbank. Taylor has served on the Board of Visitors of the Fuqua School of Business since 2013 and on the Duke Kunshan University Advisory Board since 2017. 

Dillon, Trinity ‘96, graduated summa cum laude from Duke with a degree in political science and received a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1999. After spending time doing governmental work and serving as a corporate securities attorney for Cahil Gordon & Reindel, Dillon became a shareholder at Nathan Sommers Jacobs, where he advises and provides legal counsel to real estate firms and financial institutions. 

Dillon has served as the nominating committee chair of Duke Houston and Chair of the Duke Houston Alumni Admissions Advisory Committee. He was elected to the Duke Alumni Board of Directors in 2018, where he has served on the Executive Committee since 2020 and is now assuming the role of president.

Lattimore, a doctoral candidate in theology at the Divinity School, was nominated alongside Hunt to serve as the Board’s Graduate Young Trustee. Lattimore graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in political science and government, then received a master of divinity degree from Concordia Seminary and a master of theology degree from Xavier University of Louisiana. 

He is currently pursuing a doctor of theology degree and a certificate in African & African American Studies and serves on Duke’s Racial Equity Advisory Council. Lattimore hopes “to spend [his] time on the board listening with empathy, speaking with humility, and representing Duke with integrity” and continue progress on projects such as the Racial Equity Advisory Council and the Climate Commitment.

Hunt, Pratt ‘23, was recently selected by the Young Trustee Nominating Committee and President Price as Duke’s undergraduate Young Trustee. Hunt graduated in May with a double major in electrical and computer engineering and computer science with a minor in gender, sexuality and feminist studies. 

She is currently pursuing a doctorate in electrical engineering as a Knight-Hennessy scholar at Stanford University, where she will study brain-computer interfaces. During her three-year term, Hunt aims to increase resource accessibility within the Duke community and “address the impacts of technological evolution.” 

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