Smith Welcomes New Trustees

The Smith College Board of Trustees welcomes five new members who will begin their governance duties July 1.

Ryenne Carpenter ’19 is the college’s inaugural recent graduate trustee. A sociology major with a minor in exercise and sports studies, she will spend this summer interning at Partnership for After School Education before working and conducting independent sociology research at Yale University. While at Smith, Carpenter served as president of Morrow House, chaired the House Presidents Association, was a member of the Residential Experience Working Group, and earned the Wahrsager Scholarship in the Sociology Department and the Alison Loomis Cook Honorary Scholarship from the Dean of the College. She plans to pursue a doctoral degree in sociology.

Other new trustees, who will serve four-year terms on the board, are:

Farah Champsi ’81
A venture capitalist in the life sciences sector, Farah Champsi ’81 has played a key role in raising and managing more than $1 billion in venture funds. Until recently, she was a managing director at Interwest Partners; she previously was a managing director at Alta Partners for 17 years, investing in life sciences companies. Prior to Alta she was an investment banker at Robertson Stephens for 13 years. Champsi has been a member of numerous boards of public and private life sciences companies; she is currently on the board of UC San Francisco’s Benioff Children’s Hospitals and Peninsula Bridge, as well as Stanford University’s Institute for Research in the Social Sciences. In 2014 she endowed a fellowship for female and minority students at the Stanford Business School, and in 2016 she was selected as one of the top 15 female venture capitalists in biotech by Fierce Pharma. The recipient of an economics degree from Smith, Champsi holds a master’s degree in business administration from Stanford.

Cynthia Meyn ’86
Cynthia Meyn ’86 has 34 years of investment operations, technology and risk management leadership experience within leading financial services firms. Currently the chief operating officer of Venerable Holdings, a private equity-backed company that acquires and scales closed blocks of variable annuity businesses for the benefit of policy holders, Meyn previously held senior positions at PIMCO, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, AllianceBernstein, Cantor Fitzgerald, Mizuho Capital Markets and Lehman Brothers. Meyn is a member of the boards of Duke Management Company, the Committee on Uniform Securities Identification Procedures, and the Duke University Fuqua School of Business, and is on the steering committee of the Smith College Women’s Business Network. In 2014, Meyn won the FTF News Innovation and Technology Award for Operations Business Person of the Year for her contributions to systemic risk reduction through global reconciliation improvements. A 1986 graduate of Smith, Meyn holds a master’s in business administration from Duke University Fuqua School of Business.  

Beverly Morgan-Welch ’74
Beverly Morgan-Welch ’74 is the associate director for external affairs for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the nation’s most comprehensive cultural destination devoted exclusively to exploring, documenting and showcasing the African American story and its impact on American and world history. The museum has welcomed nearly 6 million visitors, showcases a selection from 37,000 objects in its collection, and offers visitors several virtual options to experience the museum, view collection stories and enjoy public programs. Prior to joining the Smithsonian, Morgan-Welch was the executive director of the Museum of African American History in Boston and Nantucket, the oldest African American history museum in New England. Morgan-Welch’s career spans decades in not-for-profit management and corporate philanthropy. A 1974 graduate of Smith, where she was awarded the Smith Medal in 2009, she received an honorary doctorate for public service from Suffolk University and the President’s Distinguished Service Award from Bunker Hill Community College in 2014.

Adrianne Todman ’91
Adrianne Todman ’91 has dedicated her career to crafting affordable housing policies locally and nationally. As chief executive officer of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials, Todman speaks frequently at housing and community development industry convenings and has served multiple times as an expert witness before Congressional committees. Before joining NAHRO, Todman was executive director at the District of Columbia Housing Authority. She also has been a policy aide at the Department of Housing and Urban Development and was a legislative director in the U.S. House of Representatives. A member of the Brookings Institution’s "Housing as a Hub" advisory committee, Todman served as vice president of the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities and as a trustee with the National Housing Conference. She has received the federal Distinguished Service Award and the Hammer Award, and was named a “Woman of Influence” by HousingWire. A 1991 graduate of Smith, she has served on the President's Council and the Alumnae Association Board.