Duke Names Three New Members to Board of Trustees

Xi-Qing Gao, Ryan Todd and Xing Zong assumed their roles with the governing body on July 1.

Monday, July 21, 2008

DURHAM, NC -- One new member and two new observers of Duke University’s Board of Trustees were announced Monday by Robert Steel, chairman of the trustees.

Xi-Qing Gao ’86 of Beijing, China, Ryan Todd ’08 of Pisgah Forest, N.C., and Xing Zong, a native of Yangzhou, China, who is now a Ph.D candidate in physics at Duke, assumed their roles with the governing body on July 1.

“Each of our new trustees possesses impressive abilities. Their backgrounds will be extremely valuable to the board as it seeks to help Duke achieve its strategic goal of preparing its students for a global society,” Steel said. “Each has already demonstrated a strong dedication to Duke, and I look forward to working with them on many important topics.”

Gao last year was named president and chief investment officer of China Investment Corp., which manages a part of China’s foreign exchange reserves. He graduated from Duke Law School in 1986, where he was a Richard Nixon Scholar. Gao has taught at Duke Law School in an adjunct faculty position, and currently holds similar positions at several law and management schools in China.

He practiced law from 1986-1988 with a Wall Street firm before returning to China. Gao has since served on arbitration panels for hundreds of international trade or investment disputes between Chinese and foreign companies, and was instrumental in the establishment of Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges in 1990.

Additionally, Gao has written extensively on Chinese securities law, banking, legal philosophy, and antitrust. Also, he and some of his former students started a charitable fund to help children in the poorest areas of Tibet and Mongolia stay in school.

Gao will fill a vacated term through June 2013.

Todd, who graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree in political science and philosophy, and a minor in mathematics, plans to enter law school this fall.

As an undergraduate, Todd worked in public relations as a member of the Black Student Alliance. He was a senator in Duke Student Government and vice president of the student-run theater group Hoof ‘n Horn, serving as executive producer of the group’s spring 2007 production of “Guys and Dolls.” Todd also served as president of Campus Council and was founder and chair of the Alumni Student Advisory Board. He has done volunteer work at the Erwin Gardens Rehabilitation Center and the Lemur Center, and studied in Greece.

Todd, a native of Jupiter, Fla., received the Robert C. Byrd Scholarship, Florida Bright Futures Scholarship and Military Officers Benevolent Corporation Presidential Scholarship. He will serve a three-year “young trustee” term, serving as a non-voting member the first year and a voting member the following two years. He was selected for this position through Duke Student Government.

Zong, a rising sixth-year Ph.D candidate, has served as president of the Duke Chinese Students and Scholars Association, helped recruit students to Duke’s graduate school and co-led a team in the Duke Startup Challenge, an entrepreneurial competition.

He also has served as a student representative to the Duke Board of Trustees’ Institutional Advancement Committee and as student liaison for President Richard Brodhead’s first official visit to Asia in the summer of 2006.

Zong co-founded DukeChina.org, a bilingual website that features stories about Duke and interviews with school officials, among other things. He also has worked as a freelance writer/reporter for the Chinese website People’s Daily Online. He graduated in 2003 with a bachelor’s degree in physics from Nanjing University, where he won the People’s Scholarship for academic excellence on four occasions.

Zong will serve a two-year “young trustee” term, serving as a non-voting member the first year and a voting member the following year. He was selected for this position through the Graduate and Professional Student Council.