Amy Towers Elected Chair of the Rutgers Board of Governors
Tilak Lal to serve as vice chair
Amy L. Towers, founder of The Nduna Foundation and former chief operating officer of a capital management firm, has been elected to a one-year term as chair of the Rutgers University Board of Governors.
Tilak Lal, a trustee governor who leads investment risk management at Lighthouse Partners and who previously served for 12 years on the Joint Committee on Investments for the Board of Trustees and Board of Governors, was selected to serve as vice chair.
Their terms begin July 1, 2024.
Towers, appointed by Gov. Phil Murphy to the board in 2020, established The Nduna Foundation in 2007 to advance interventions in nutrition and public health, community redevelopment and human rights. During the past 20 years, she has served on several nonprofit boards ranging from community-based organizations to large national and multinational boards – including UNICEF and the CDC Foundation – providing leadership on international issues and public health.
Towers currently serves as the chair of the Rutgers University Foundation Board of Directors, the board chair of MANA Nutrition, and as a board member of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Institute of International Education, International Peace Institute, Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC) and President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition. She was also a founding member of the board of advisors to The Elders, created by Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Richard Branson and Peter Gabriel to work for peace, justice, human rights and a sustainable planet.
A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she has been recognized for her humanitarian efforts around the globe. She is a recipient of UNICEF’s Audrey Hepburn Humanitarian Award and has also been recognized by the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation, the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation, the International Center for Research on Women and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
Lal is a past chair and vice chair of the Board of Trustees. He is a graduate of the Rutgers School of Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology and Columbia Business School. Lal has served on the Board of Governors’ Executive Committee and its Committees on Finance and Facilities, Athletics, and Academic and Student Affairs. Lal also serves on the Rutgers University School of Engineering Industry Advisory Board and the Rutgers University Foundation Board of Directors.
The Rutgers Board of Governors is composed of 15 voting members vested generally with the government, control, conduct, management, and administration of the university. Rutgers also has an advisory Board of Trustees of 41 voting members empowered with certain fiduciary responsibilities over assets of the university in existence before 1956.
