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Three Harvard Business School alumni — Paul B. Edgerley, Mary Callahan Erdoes, and Raymond J. McGuire ’79 — were appointed to Harvard Management Company’s board of directors, the University announced on Tuesday.
The trio — all of whom have extensive experience in private equity or asset management — joins HMC during a period of ongoing shifts in managing Harvard’s $56.9 billion endowment, as the University continues to expand its exposure to private markets and alternative investments.
But the appointment of Erdoes, the CEO of J.P. Morgan Asset & Wealth Management, could introduce new headaches for Harvard. Erdoes has drawn federal scrutiny for her management of JPMorgan Chase’s relationship with convicted child sex offender Jeffrey E. Epstein, who held accounts at the bank between 1998 and 2013.
The appointments bring the total number of HMC directors to 15. The board has no fixed size and includes designated seats for the University’s president, treasurer, and chief financial officer, as well as HMC’s chief executive officer N.P. “Narv” Narvekar.
Edgerley is the managing director and co-founder of VantEdge Partners, a private investment family office group, and previously led private equity at Bain Capital. McGuire serves as president of Lazard, a global financial advisory and asset management firm, and previously led Citigroup’s investment banking division.
The appointment of Erdoes came a week after newly unsealed federal records indicated she was among a select few senior JPMorgan executives who maintained regular contact with Epstein while he was a client of the bank, according to a Nov. 19 memorandum from a Senate Finance Committee investigation.
Harvard, under pressure after newly released documents from the House Oversight Committee revealed correspondence between Epstein and several faculty members, has redoubled its efforts to examine ties to Epstein. A week before Erdoes’s appointment, the University launched an investigation to revisit the connections between Epstein and Harvard affiliates, including former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers, who maintained a close correspondence with Epstein until the financier’s 2019 arrest.
Explosive revelations in the House documents prompted President Donald Trump to order a Justice Department investigation into Summers, and House staff floated the idea of launching a probe into Harvard, CNN reported earlier this month.
Spokespeople for HMC and the University did not respond to requests for comment on Erdoes’s appointment.
Investigators wrote that many of the exchanges between Erdoes and Epstein were “highly personal in nature and reflect a close relationship” and that Epstein appeared to have “constant access” to Erdoes during 2010 and 2011 — months after he completed a 13-month prison sentence stemming from a 2008 Florida guilty plea on charges of procuring a minor for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute.
JPMorgan terminated Epstein as a client in 2013 citing money laundering concerns, but according to the Senate memo, Erdoes personally approved an internal request later that year to continue working with Epstein on projects for third-party clients like Leon D. Black, an executive at private equity giant Apollo. A gift from Black brokered by Epstein funded the work of English professor emerita Elisa F. New, who is married to Summers.
In 2019, the New York Times reported that Erdoes was the driving force behind retaining Epstein as a client after his initial conviction in 2008, against the recommendation of the firm’s in-house compliance officers. A spokesperson for JPMorgan disputed the newspaper’s reporting at the time, claiming that Erdoes “would never overrule our compliance team or other controls functions to retain a customer” and that Erdoes only met with Epstein once to fire him as a client.
Erdoes was repeatedly made aware of Epstein’s convictions and his status as a high-risk sex offender, but she chose not to drop him as a client or open an investigation into his accounts, according to a March 2023 deposition first reported by the Washington Post.
Erdoes also admitted in the deposition, parts of which were cited in a legal complaint later that spring, that JPMorgan knew by 2006 that Epstein was accused of paying cash to have minors brought to his home.
JPMorgan ultimately paid $75 million to settle the lawsuit, which was brought by the U.S. Virgin Islands and alleged that the bank enabled Epstein’s sex trafficking network.
In a statement to The Crimson, a spokesperson for JPMorgan defended Erdoes and the company, pointing to Erdoes’ termination of Epstein as a client in 2013 and saying the bank did not know the scope of the sex trafficking allegations against Epstein until his 2019 arrest.
“The firm filed multiple several Suspicious Activity Reports beginning in 2002 but heard nothing back from the government,” the spokesperson wrote.
“In 2013, Mary and her team made the decision to terminate him as a client. It was not until 17 years later that the government made public the sex trafficking details – information they clearly had for years and failed to share with us or other banks,” the spokesperson added.
The spokesperson also defended Erdoes, writing that she “has always held herself and her colleagues to the highest standards of integrity and trust.”
The Senate memo described messages showing Epstein and Erdoes in frequent contact about business matters.
In one 2011 email unsealed in the memo, Epstein wrote to Erdoes, who was traveling abroad, “There are 21 million reasons I’d like to know when you return.” After Erdoes informed him she was in Europe at the time, Epstein asked if they could speak immediately.
In another exchange, also from 2011, an assistant informed Erdoes that Epstein thought she would “appreciate that he just got out of the pool at the Ritz” in Paris.
“Rude and insensitive,” Erdoes wrote back.
According to the Senate memo, Epstein was told by former JPMorgan executive Jes Staley to “stop pushing” Erdoes. Epstein responded that he would “ease off” but had “thought I was following plan.” Staley later became CEO of British bank Barclays before resigning after a British government investigation of his close relationship with Epstein.
Erdoes also sent Epstein a birthday greeting in 2012. “Not sure where you are celebrating it, but I hope you have a great birthday weekend,” Erdoes wrote. “Thanks, Boris said you were terrific,” Epstein wrote back.
McGuire and Edgerley boast longstanding ties to Harvard’s fundraising efforts. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences deanship was renamed after a gift from Edgerley and his wife Sandra M. Edgerley ’84 in 2014. The couple also led the FAS’s $2.5 billion capital campaign in 2013.
McGuire spoke at HBS’s Class Day in 2023, and was awarded the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal, the University’s highest honor in African American Studies, in 2022. McGuire also led a three-year campaign to establish the David L. Evans Scholarship for underrepresented students at Harvard College in 2003.
Harvard treasurer and HMC Board chair Timothy R. Barakett ’87 praised the additions in a statement, pointing to the new directors’ background in global markets, asset management and organizational leadership.
“Harvard and HMC are very fortunate to welcome these three distinguished alumni to the Board,” Barakett wrote. “Their leadership will help ensure that these resources continue to provide vital support for current and future generations of students, faculty, and scholars.”
—Staff writer Saketh Sundar can be reached at saketh.sundar@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @saketh_sundar.
