Finance Chief To Step Down

Harvard’s finance chief will step down in April to pursue her deep-rooted interest in foreign languages, spending half of the year in Europe and the other half working on projects as an advisor for the University.

Vice President for Finance and Chief Financial Officer Ann E. Berman was credited by top Harvard officials this week for ensuring the University’s financial strength. Her tenure included fiscal hurdles like skyrocketing compensation costs, belt-tightening across the University, and preparations to finance Harvard’s future expansion into Allston, expected to cost billions. Berman oversaw the financial apparatus of a University that booked $2.6 billion in expenses during fiscal year 2004.

In an interview yesterday, Berman said she feels “great” about her time in the position.

“I set out to achieve certain things, and I haven’t achieved everything, but I like to think I’ve made a difference in the financial management of Harvard,” Berman said. “I certainly had fun, too.”

Berman plans to spend half the year in Italy and the other half back in Cambridge, filling an advisory position about which Harvard has disclosed few details. The specific projects on which she will work, and the people to whom she will report, have not been finalized, Berman said. She called the range of her possible duties “wide open” and said she will work “wherever there’s need around the University.”

With Berman scheduled to step down April 1, Harvard administrators hope to name a successor well before her departure, ensuring a smooth transition.

The search for a new finance chief comes as Harvard seeks a new leader for the Harvard Management Company (HMC), which invests the University’s endowment.

After 15 years at the company, President and CEO Jack R. Meyer will leave to start a new investment firm with four other Harvard money managers.

While originally scheduled to depart June 30, 2005, Meyer has stayed on board for several additional months, awaiting his successor, who has yet to be named. He is now scheduled to leave after September 30. A search firm will aid in the hunt for a new finance chief, University Spokesman John Longbrake said yesterday.

Berman said she does not expect the dual job searches to present a challenge for Harvard officials, given her expectation that Meyer’s position will be filled “quite quickly” and her plans to remain in her role through April.

She said that Harvard’s fiscal health will remain in qualified hands, despite the departures.

“I think we’ll end up with great people in both positions, and I think we’ll continue to be very strong on both the investment side and the financial management side,” she said.

Having spent well over a decade working on finance at Harvard, Berman praised Summers as a financial literate and called the University “a great place to be a finance person.”

A PULL FROM ABROAD

For Berman, the decision to spend more time in Europe is the latest pull in a personal tug-of-war between finance and foreign language.

Fluent in Italian and French, Berman earned a B.A. in French literature from Cornell University but went on to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania to receive an M.B.A.

But then, after nearly a decade in public accounting, Berman pursued graduate studies in Italian and Italian literature. Her literary work includes a translation of Citta del Sole, a major Italian text from the seventeenth century, according to the Harvard Gazette.

Berman resumed finance work at Harvard in 1991, and in October 2002 was named acting vice president for finance, after the previous finance chief, Elizabeth C. “Beppie” Huidekoper, left for Brown University. Tempted by Europe, Berman initially hesitated to take the job permanently. She did so in February 2003, convinced by University President Lawrence H. Summers, whom she called “pretty persuasive.”

Ultimately, Berman said she found the job “so interesting that I was willing to make the sacrifice,” and saw the position as an opportunity to make her mark on Harvard’s finances.

But Berman said that she committed to the position for only three years, so the decision to step down in 2006 was hatched at the start of her tenure.

—Staff writer Nicholas M. Ciarelli can be reached at ciarelli@fas.harvard.edu.