Notes

  • Ralph Eads Appointed to Duke Board of Trustees

    Ralph Eads, '81,     was appointed to the Board of Trustees of Duke University on June 24, 2009.

    Eads, 49, is vice chairman of Jefferies & Co., Inc., a U.S. investment bank, where he chairs the firm’s global energy section that advises on the sale and purchase of oil and gas assets. Eads also serves on the board of the American Clean Skies Foundation, a nonprofit charitable organization that provides information about environmental and energy issues.

    Eads was the president of Randall & Dewey, which is the leading specialist investment bank in the oil and gas industry. The firm was acquired by Jefferies & Co. in 2005. Prior to joining Randall & Dewey in 2003, Eads was executive vice president of El Paso Corp., where he was responsible for its unregulated businesses.
     
    Eads’ Duke service includes positions on the Fuqua School of Business Board of Visitors, 2002-2006; the Trinity College Board of Visitors, 1996-2002; and the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy Board of Visitors, 1995-1998.

    His civic activities include serving as chairman of Expectation Graduation, a program aimed at keeping young people in school that was started by Houston Mayor Bill White. Eads recently served as a trustee of St. George’s School in Newport, R.I., and has been active in the Nature Conservancy of Texas, the Houston Ballet, The Kinkaid School Foundation, and Small Steps.

    Previously, he was managing director and head of the energy group at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. He has held senior positions at S.G. Warburg and Lehman Brothers. He is active in a number of educational organizations, serving on the boards of St. George’s School, the Kinkaid School Foundation, and Expectation Graduation, an outreach program to keep kids in school.

    Eads is a native Houstonian who graduated from Duke with high honors in economics. He and his wife, Lisa, have five children. Their oldest child, David, is enrolled at Duke. Ralph can be reached at email RALPHEADS3@YAHOO.COM.

     

  • John T Chambers, '71

    John ChambersJohn T. Chambers is Chairman of the Board and CEO of Cisco Systems, Inc. Chambers joined Cisco in 1991 as senior vice president, Worldwide Sales and Operations. Since January 1995, when he assumed the role of CEO, Chambers has grown the company from $1.2 billion in annual revenues to its current run-rate of approximately $40 billion.

    In November 2006, he was named Chairman of the Board, in addition to his CEO role. Prior to joining Cisco, he spent eight years at Wang Laboratories (1982-1990) and six years with IBM (1976-1982). Chambers served on the Board of Directors of myCFO.

    Chambers holds Juris Doctor (1974) and Bachelor of Science/Bachelor of Arts in business (1971) degrees from West Virginia University. He later received a Masters of Business Administration degree in finance and management (1975) from Indiana University. He also attended the School of Engineering at Duke University from 1967 to 1968.

     

  • John C Clark, '63, CEO, JCClark Ltd.

    John C ClarkJohn C Clark '63 is the CEO and founder of JCClark and is the Portfolio Manager of their flagship fund, the Preservation Trust.

    Founded in 2001 by John Clark and Colin Stewart, JCClark Ltd. (JCClark) is an independent investment firm that manages portfolios of two million dollars or more on behalf of high net worth individuals and families as well as institutional investors and foundations. The company is located in Toronto, Canada.

    John received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Duke University in 1963. He is the co-founder of two well known Canadian predecessor firms, Connor, Clark & Co. (1977) and Connor Clark & Lunn (1982). John served as Chairman of the Toronto Stock Exchange from 1995 to 1997 and held positions on numerous other Boards throughout his career, including The Empire Company & Arbor Memorial. He currently serves as a member of the Board of the Toronto Rehab Centre. John has successfully managed money for over 40 years, across a wide variety of economic and market environments. He can be reached at JCC@JCCLARK.COM.

     

  • Andy Berndt, Managing Director, Creative Lab, Google

    Andy BerndtAndy Berndt, '89, and former co-president of Ogilvy & Mather in New York, departed the WPP Group agency in 2007 after eight years to head up a new global marketing unit at Google. The new unit is described as a lab focusing on “innovation” and dedicated to finding ways advertisers, agencies and entertainment companies can intersect.

    Before his tenure at Ogilvy, Berndt helped create ads for Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) at Weiden & Kennedy. After that, he went to TBWA/Chiat/Day and was the account executive on Apple’s (NSDQ: AAPL) “Think Different” campaign.

    —Adweek: Citing a Google representative, the new unit is called Google Creative Lab and Berndt will be its first managing director. As described in the Adweek article, Berndt will oversee the marketing of Google’s brand and services, and strike deals with agencies to use Google’s products as part of their campaigns.

    —WSJ: Berndt’s hiring is likely to unnerve some on Madison Avenue, who may worry that Google intends to get into creative services (the task of designing ads), which is the ad industry’s bread and butter. A Google spokeswoman said the company was “not moving into the ad agency business” and wouldn’t work with marketers directly.