Ackman’s Friend on the Board Pushed for Change at Harvard

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://wallstreetjournal-ny.newsmemory.com/?publink=16295d2f4_134d110__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!rt5Q-quTHDwcJuQZYqIf-ShEKr-5HlDyRnw6amZ53sHZryKTSbVKk9s56n5Y20ALmmVBqDwAkXbATQBuRQ$

Billionaire hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman spent months publicly pressuring
Harvard to cut ties with its embattled president, Claudine Gay. Mean-while,
a friend of his on Harvard's governing board was among a small group pushing
for change.

Tracy Palandjian is a member of the Harvard Corporation, the insular
12-person group with broad authority to manage the university. Though the
group stood by Gay-it accepted her resignation last Tuesday "with
sorrow"-Palandjian is one of a handful of its members who had privately
questioned whether she could continue as president, people familiar with the
matter said. Others who lost faith in her leadership included private-equity
executive Paul Finnegan and investor Timothy Barakett.

An alumnus of Harvard's economics program and its business school,
Palandjian, 52, is co-founder and CEO of Social Finance, a nonprofit that
raises money from investors for projects meant to reduce government
spending. Until December, she also sat on the board of Pershing Square
Holdings, the publicly traded arm of Ackman's investment firm.

The two met years ago through Harvard's alumni network. Palandjian launched
Social Finance in 2011, modeling it on a similar business her cofounders had
built in the U.K. Ackman's charitable foundation was one of its earliest
backers, contributing $1.5 million soon after it launched. His foundation
has given millions more in the years since.

After the New York Times reported in late December that Palandjian told a
group of academics that replacing Gay might not go far enough to get the
university back on track, Ackman tweeted a link to the article.

"Now that's the Tracy Palandjian I know," he said.

Palandjian joined the board of Ackman's publicly traded investment fund,
known for taking stakes in companies including Chipotle and Hilton, in 2021.

She was added to the Harvard Corporation in April 2022, after serving on the
board of overseers from 2012 to 2018. She was also part of the search
committees that selected former Harvard President Lawrence Bacow in 2018 and
Gay in 2022.

Ackman, a fellow Harvard alum, made his name as an activist investor before
morphing into a social crusader in recent years, mainly through lengthy
diatribes posted on his X account. He began zeroing in on Gay's handling of
antisemitism on campus soon after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel and sent a
handful of open letters that became increasingly critical of her leadership
when she was accused of plagiarism.

Ackman called Palandjian a handful of times to rant during his quest to get
Gay removed. He tweeted in early December one of his "friends" on the
Harvard board had ghosted him and that the two haven't spoken about Harvard
since early November, people familiar with the matter said.

While it isn't unusual for members of the corporation to be in contact with
other alumni and stakeholders, critics have accused Harvard of appeasing
wealthy donors like Ackman.

On Dec. 13, Pershing Square said Palandjian decided to retire from its
board, effective Jan. 1, because of increased demands of her work and other
board positions. Her departure was also to avoid conflicts as Ackman amped
up pressure on Gay to resign, people familiar with the matter said.

People who have worked closely with Palandjian say she is an expert
networker who is politically adept in the boardroom.

"She stays in a safe place until she understands where the chips are going
to fall," one of the people said. "She doesn't want to be on the losing side
of any discussion."

Another person said she tries to hear everyone out to best steer the group.

Palandjian was raised in Hong Kong and came to the U.S. as a teenager.

While an undergraduate at Harvard, she met her future husband, Leon
Palandjian, a doctor who worked and invested in life sciences before
becoming chief risk officer of his family's company, Intercontinental Real
Estate Corp.

Tracy Palandjian completed a stint at McKinsey & Co. before receiving an MBA
from Harvard Business School and working at asset manager Wellington
Management.

With the help of two fellow Harvard Business School alumni, she launched
Social Finance, which raises money from investors for social programs,
aiming to improve efficiency in government spending.