Harpeth Hall’s New Trustees

Harpeth Hall New Trustees

Harpeth Hall salutes trustees whose terms concluded at the end of the 2020-2021 school year. Thank you Brie Brown Buchanan ’99, Craig Buffkin, Patty Delony ’66, Carol Len Portis, and David Vandewater for your years of trustee service. We welcome the following new trustees beginning 2021-2022 and congratulate two new honorary trustees.

Bahar Azhdari ’00 Kate Sherrard Chinn ’93 Greg Hagood Hal Hess Arie Nettles, Ph.D. Michelle Wolfe Proctor ’89 Alison Smith ’79 Patty Litton Delony ’66 Jackie Glover Thompson ’64

Bahar Azhdari ’00 is associate general counsel, labor and employment at Brookdale Senior Living Inc., a national leader in senior living solutions. She was formerly an associate with Waller. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in International Studies and Middle Eastern Studies from Emory University and received her law degree from the University of Tennessee Law School. Bahar is a current member of the Board of Directors of the Nashville Bar Association, and she has served on the Board of Directors and executive committee for First Steps, Inc. Bahar served on Harpeth Hall’s Head’s Young Alumnae Council from 2010 to 2019 and served as co-chair from 2015 to 2017. She has served on numerous alumnae panels for Harpeth Hall’s Admission Office and is a frequent Career Day participant. Kate Sherrard Chinn ’93 is vice president/head of community and civic engagement at AllianceBernstein in Nashville. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in English from University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, graduating Phi Beta Kappa. Previously, she was the senior vice president of growth at the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce. Kate lived in New York City from 1999 to 2015 where she worked in project management and marketing fields, including a stint as senior director of marketing at Rockefeller Center. Kate is completing her term as the alumnae board president, and served as president-elect in 2019-2020, which included two years as an ex officio member of the Board of Trustees. She served on the National Advisory Council from 2006 to 2012. Kate has chaired The Annual Fund alumnae committee and has served as a reunion class chair. She has participated on the distinguished alumna committee and most recently participated in Career Day 2021. Kate was celebrated as Harpeth Hall’s Lady of the Hall in 1993. Greg Hagood is a co-founder and co-CEO of Nephila Capital Ltd., which is a leading investment manager specializing in catastrophe reinsurance risk and has offices in Bermuda, London, Nashville, and San Francisco. He received his Bachelor of Science from the University of Tennessee. He began his financial career at Bear Stearns in New York, where he managed the mortgage servicing trading desk. In 1997, he joined Willis Group in London to help start up what is now Nephila Capital. He is a former member of the Franklin Road Academy Board of Trustees and serves on the Board of the Martha O’Bryan Center. He is completing his term as Harpeth Hall’s Annual Fund major gifts chair with his wife Barbara. Their daughter Charlotte is a rising 10th grade student at Harpeth Hall, and their other two children are graduates of FRA. Hal Hess began his career at King & Spalding in Atlanta and later joined American Tower Corporation serving as executive vice president of international operations and president for the Latin America, Europe, Middle East and Africa regions. American Tower Corp. is a real estate investment trust (REIT) that owns, operates, and develops multitenant communications real estate all over the world. During his tenure at American Tower, the Hess family lived in Boston and the Netherlands. Hal earned his undergraduate degree from Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas, and his J.D. from Vanderbilt School of Law. Hal currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, and prior to moving to Nashville, served on the boards of Kingsley Montessori School and the Montserrat College of Art in the Boston area. He and his wife, Jodi, recently served on Harpeth Hall’s Annual Fund major gifts committee. Their daughter Emery is a rising 9th grader and Lila is a rising 5th grader. Arie Nettles, Ph.D is a professor of clinical pediatrics and a psychologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She works with patients ranging from school-age children to young adults who have developmental disabilities, autism, and cleft and craniofacial disorders. She founded the VUMC Office of Inclusion and Health Equity at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt and serves as its director. She earned a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science from the University of Tennessee and her Ph.D. in Clinical and School Psychology from The George Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. She served on the Harpeth Hall Board of Trustees from 2006 to 2012 and as an ex officio member from 2004 to 2006 during her tenure as HHPA president and president-elect. She served on the Campaign for Harpeth Hall parent committee in the early 2000s. Her daughters are all Harpeth Hall graduates: Ana Nettles ’05, Sabin Nettles ’09, and Aidan Nettles ’13.

Michelle Wolfe Proctor ’89 is a certified financial planner and financial advisor with Crown Capital Securities, L.P. She received her Bachelor of Science in Corporate Finance from the University of Alabama. She has worked with AmSouth’s Investment Services Group, Powell Johnson, and Stifel, Nicolaus & Company as a financial advisor. She has served for multiple years on The Annual Fund alumnae committee and has been a reunion class chair. She and her husband, Steve, recently served on The Annual Fund major gifts committee. Their daughter Mimi is a rising 10th grader at Harpeth Hall. Alison Smith ’79 is senior vice president of distribution and administration services at Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) headquartered in New York City. She oversees all of BMI’s domestic and international royalty distribution and administration services to its more than 900,000 members. Alison earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from Belmont University’s School of Music Business. She served on Harpeth Hall’s National Advisory Council from 2012 to 2019, and was the co-chair from 2017 to 2019, which included an ex officio term on the Board of Trustees. She has hosted Winterim interns at BMI both in New York City and in Nashville and has hosted numerous regional events for students and alumnae in the New York area during Winterim.

HONORARY TRUSTEES

Patty Litton Delony ’66 served as a Harpeth Hall trustee from 2015 to 2021 and was an invaluable member of the finance committee. She has an undergraduate degree in economics from Duke University and an M.B.A. in finance from Georgia State University. She also holds the C.F.A. designation. Earlier in her career, she was a vice president of Sara Lee Corporation and worked as a portfolio manager and economist for an Atlanta bank. A resident of Chicago, Patty served on the National Advisory Council, of which she was named an honorary member in 2007 and has chaired numerous alumnae committees. With her deep roots in Harpeth Hall history, Patty was a contributing writer to Celebrating Milestones: The Life and Legacy of the Harpeth Hall School published in 2001. Patty is the daughter of Jane Chadwell Delony ’39 and the niece of Patty Litton Chadwell ’35, who founded Harpeth Hall’s physical education and tennis programs for whom the fitness center is named in the Athletic and Wellness Center.

Jackie Glover Thompson ’64 served her first term as a trustee in 1978. As she ends her most recent term as secretary of the Board of Trustees, Jackie concludes a total of 34 years of extraordinary trustee service. She has served on numerous committees for all aspects of Harpeth Hall school life including Head of School search committees, alumnae and campaign fundraising, finance, security planning, and trustees and governance. In 1999, Jackie received the prestigious Dede Bullard Wallace Award, which honors individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to the school. Jackie and her husband, De, have many family ties to Harpeth Hall, including their two daughters, Mary Britton Thompson Cummings ’93 and Jacqueline Thompson Towery ’00, daughter-in-law Margaret McNeilly Thompson ’03, and two granddaughters who are current students, Marion Cummings ’22 and Adelaide Cummings ’26.