Arlington, VA | October 02, 2015

The Nature Conservancy is pleased to announce the appointment of Senator Bill Frist, Vin Ryan, Brenda Shapiro and Ying Wu as new members of its global Board of Directors.

"I'm delighted that such outstanding individuals have volunteered to serve on The Nature Conservancy's Board of Directors," CEO Mark Tercek said. "Each of these new Directors brings a valuable set of skills and experiences that will enhance our Board's ability to help us accomplish important conservation work around the world."

William H. Frist, M.D is a nationally acclaimed heart and lung transplant surgeon, former U. S. Senate Majority Leader, and chairman of the Executive Board of the private equity firm Cressey & Company. Dr. Frist represented Tennessee in the U.S. Senate for 12 years where his focus was health. He was elected Majority Leader of the Senate, having served fewer total years in Congress than any person chosen to lead that body in history.

Currently Frist serves as an adjunct professor of Cardiac Surgery at Vanderbilt University and clinical professor of Surgery at Meharry Medical College, and chairman of the Hope Through Healing Hands foundation which focuses on global health, and SCORE, a statewide collaborative K12 education reform organization that has helped propel Tennessee to prominence as a reform state, and NashvilleHealth.

His current nonprofit board service includes the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Kaiser Family Foundation, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Bipartisan Policy Center, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Harvard Medical School Board of Fellows. His public company board service includes Select Medical, Teladoc, and AECOM.

"The dynamic and increasingly appreciated nexus of conservation, domestic and global, with health and well-being of people, animals and land is exciting and I'm glad to be a part of an organization that is playing an important role in that nexus." – Senator Frist

Vin Ryan is Chairman of Schooner Capital, LLC, a venture capital firm founded in 1971. Mr. Ryan founded and built several companies in the last 40 years in the Information Management, Communications, and Alternative Energy industries, including Iron Mountain, which he built into a global provider of information management services. He served as director until 2014.

Mr. Ryan is President of the Schooner Foundation, which supports domestic and international organizations in the fields of human rights, social justice, higher education, and conservation.

Mr. Ryan has served on a number of philanthropic boards. He currently chairs the advisory board of the Carr Center for Human Rights at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He also serves on the Dean's Council. In addition, he serves on the boards of Issue One and the Brigham & Women's President's Advisory Council. He is Trustee Emeritus at the Marine Biological Lab and at the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum. Mr. Ryan has previously served on the boards of the Furniture Society, the Landmine Survivor Network, and Physicians for Human Rights and is a graduate of Boston University.

"I have long been involved with TNC at the local level on Block Island, RI, where 45% of the island has been preserved, and have helped start a program in Africa. Climate change is the foremost problem confronting our globe, and TNC is uniquely positioned to play a major role in getting society to focus on the seriousness of this issue. I am deeply honored to serve on the global board and hope I can meaningfully contribute to this effort." – Vin Ryan

Brenda Shapiro was born and raised in Oklahoma. After graduating from Smith College with a BA in history, she began her journalism career at Mademoiselle Magazine in New York. After moving to Chicago, where she took time out to raise three children and start a small cooking school, she joined Chicago Magazine as Consumer Editor. She covered architecture and fashion, wrote profiles and essays, articles on food and gardening and book reviews. She has been a trustee of the Nature Conservancy's Illinois Chapter for 20 years and is a past chair of the chapter. She was an early supporter of fresh-water conservation and was chair of the Five-State Advisory Board for the Upper Mississippi River, which evolved into the present Great Rivers Partnership, on whose board she also served. Outside of her TNC work, she serves on the Board of Directors of the Lyric Opera of Chicago and on its Executive Committee. She is a trustee of the Art Institute of Chicago and serves on the Committees for Photography and European Painting and Sculpture. She is also the chair of the Committee for Deaccession. She is a member of the Dean's Advisory Council to the Department of Architecture at Yale. At the University of Chicago, she serves on the Visiting Committees for the Humanities and for the Division of Social Sciences.

"I welcome the opportunity to help govern TNC after more than 20, wonderful years as an Illinois Trustee. I have a particular interest in fresh water and large river systems and, especially, in the part that agriculture plays in their health. The Conservancy is working to eliminate hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico and I am excited to be a part of that effort at the global scale." – Brenda Shapiro

Ying Wu has served as the chairman of China Capital Group since October 2008. Previously, he co-founded UTStarcom Inc., and served as chairman and CEO of UTStarcom China for 12 years. Mr. Wu has more than 20 years of experience as a technology innovator and telecommunications entrepreneur.

Mr. Wu is currently a member of the think tank Consultant Committee of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council and senior consultant on the Internet industry for the Shenzhen city government. He is also chairman of E-China Alliances. Mr. Wu was recognized in 1998 by Business Week as one of the 50 Stars of Asia, credited for averting a financial crisis in Asia. In 2003, China Central TV (CCTV) named Mr. Wu one of the Top 10 Most Influential Persons in the country's economy.

"It's a great pleasure and honor for me to become a Director at The Nature Conservancy. Drawn to TNC by its values and achievements earned in saving nature, personally I can't agree more with TNC's philosophy in and dedication to protecting the earth. I'm now encouraged to envision the future, like many Chinese entrepreneurs are, by emulating TNC's environmental sustainability examples in the country of China." – Ying Wu


To learn more about TNC's leadership, please visit http://www.nature.org/aboutus/leadership.

The Nature Conservancy is a leading conservation organization working around the world to conserve the lands and waters on which all life depends. The Conservancy and its more than 1 million members have protected nearly 120 million acres worldwide. Visit The Nature Conservancy on the Web at www.nature.org