Five New Trustees Appointed to Trinity College Board of Trustees; New Leadership in 2021

President Joanne Berger-Sweeney has announced the appointment of five new trustees to the Trinity College Board of Trustees; they will begin their terms on July 1, 2020. Berger-Sweeney also announced the board’s leadership succession plan for 2021.

All the new trustees are alumni. They are: Ross Buchmueller ’87, Henry D’Auria ’83, Susannah Smetana Kagan ’91, David L. “Dave” Schnadig ’86, and Damian W. Wilmot ’97. Read more about them below.

For the 2020–21 academic year, current Trustee Lisa Bisaccia ’78 will join Kevin J. Maloney ’79 and Michael J. Kluger ’78, P’13 as vice chairs. Bisaccia, executive vice president and chief human resources officer and member of the Executive Committee of CVS Health, will succeed current Board of Trustees Chair Cornelia Thornburgh ’80 on July 1, 2021, when Thornburgh, who has held the leadership post since 2014, retires from the board.

More on the new trustees:

Ross Buchmueller ’87

Ross Buchmueller is the president and chief executive officer of the PURE Group of Insurance Companies (PURE). His career spans more than 30 years exclusively focused on the high-net-worth property and casualty insurance market. After spending more than a decade at the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies, Buchmueller founded AIG Private Client Group and served as its president for more than six years before launching PURE in 2006. In 2020, PURE became a member of the Tokio Marine Group, one of the world’s largest insurance organizations.

Buchmueller was a founder of the Private Risk Management Association (PRMA) and a member of its Board of Trustees. He serves on the Board of Governors of the PGA Tour First Tee Foundation. He previously served on Trinity’s Board of Fellows.

Buchmueller earned a B.A. in economics from Trinity. He and his wife, Pam, and their two children live in Mamaroneck, New York.

Henry D’Auria ’83

Henry D’Auria is the chief investment officer of emerging markets value equities at AllianceBernstein, a position he has held since 2002, and portfolio manager for the Next 50 Emerging Markets Fund. During his nearly three decades with the company, he served as co-CIO of international value equities and was one of the lead architects of the firm’s global research department, which he managed from 1998 through 2002. He also served as director of research of Small Cap Value Equities and director of research of Emerging Markets Value Equities. Before joining the company in 1991, he was a vice president and sell-side analyst at PaineWebber, where he specialized in restaurants, lodging, and retail.

D’Auria, who has type 1 diabetes, is active in the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and has served as a board member and as past president and past treasurer of the nonprofit’s New York City Chapter. He also is a member of the New York Advisory Council of The Cahn Fellows Program at Teachers College, Columbia University, which seeks to improve large urban public-school systems nationally by providing distinguished school leaders with advanced professional development and recognition.

D’Auria earned a B.S. in economics from Trinity. He and his partner, Rob Mallari, live on the Upper West Side of New York City.

Susannah Smetana Kagan ’91

Susannah Smetana Kagan is an environmental attorney who focuses her time in the nonprofit sector. She serves as a trustee of The Nature Conservancy’s New York Division, advising on statewide conservation strategy and initiatives to align with the global agenda. She also has served as an adviser and board member of Perfect Earth Project, a nonprofit that promotes toxin-free land management, as well as on the board of the School of American Ballet. Prior to her work with nonprofits, she practiced environmental law with Seyfarth Shaw and began her legal training as a staff attorney with the Georgetown Appellate Litigation Clinic.

Smetana Kagan graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Trinity, where she was a President’s Fellow and earned a B.A. with honors in philosophy. Smetana Kagan also holds a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and an M.P.A. from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. She is a founding member of Trinity’s Women’s Leadership Council and previously served on the Board of Fellows.

She and her husband, Peter Kagan, and their two children live in New York City.

David L. “Dave” Schnadig ’86

Dave Schnadig, co-president of Cortec Group, a New-York based private equity firm, joined the company in 1995 as a managing director and was promoted to partner in 2000 and managing partner in 2010. At Cortec Group, he has served as the board chair of many of the firm’s portfolio companies, including YETI Holdings, and leads all investor relations activities. Prior to Cortec, he was assistant to the chairman of SunAmerica, where he co-led merger and acquisition activities and managed a $350 million alternative asset investment portfolio. Prior to SunAmerica, Schnadig was an investment banker at Lehman Brothers and a management consultant at Cresap, McCormick & Paget.

Schnadig graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Trinity, earning a B.A. with honors in economics. He went on to earn an M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Schnadig previously served Trinity as a member of its Board of Fellows. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of East Harlem Tutorial Program, which includes its charter school network. His father, Richard Schnadig ’61, graduated from Trinity, as well as his brother, Ian Schnadig, M.D. ’91.

Schnadig resides in New York City with his wife, Lori. They have two children: Jennifer, 23, and Matthew, 21.

Damian W. Wilmot ’97

Damian W. Wilmot is the senior vice president and chief risk and compliance officer at Vertex Pharmaceuticals. He is responsible for leading the company’s global compliance (the Office of Business Integrity & Ethics), global litigation, and enterprise risk management organizations. Wilmot earlier served as the company’s chief litigation counsel, interim head of compliance, and interim head of human resources. Prior to Vertex, Wilmot worked as chief litigation counsel for another global pharmaceutical company, as a litigation partner with Goodwin Procter, and as an assistant U.S. attorney in the District of Massachusetts. He began his legal career as a judicial law clerk for Justice Christine S. Vertefeuille ’72 on the State of Connecticut Supreme Court.

Wilmot earned a B.A. in American studies from Trinity and went on to earn a J.D. from Suffolk University Law School. He serves on the boards of HarborOne Bancorp, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, and the Boys & Girls Club of Boston. He also served as a trustee at Suffolk University and as a commissioner on the Massachusetts Judicial Nominating Commission by gubernatorial appointment.

Wilmot and his wife, Yndia S. Lorick-Wilmot ’99, Ph.D., have two children and are residents of Milton, Massachusetts.

 

A full listing of the Trinity College Board of Trustees can be found here.