Distinguished alumna 2017

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Manhattan Magnolia MARCIE ALLEN VAN MOL ’92

DISTINGUISHED ALUMNA

By Shannon Simpson Bevins ‘92

For

her contributions in the music industry and her ongoing philanthropic efforts in her Nashville and New York City communities, The Harpeth Hall School is honored to name Marcie Allen Van Mol ’92 as its 2017 Distinguished Alumna.

If a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, then Harpeth Hall alumna Marcie Allen Van Mol’s first intrepid steps took place in a plaid kilt and saddle oxfords.

It was during those kilt-wearing days that Marcie Allen ’92 was placed in charge of booking music entertainment for one of the biggest events of the year - the Harpeth Hall music-loving, Gen X set Prom. For $500, Marcie secured the band. The Megaphonics were signed, sealed, and they certainly delivered.

Based on the dance floor energy—big hair and 90s taffeta dresses churning and spinning in Morrison Gym that night—prom was a monumental success. Unbeknownst to her classmates, the prom band-booking endeavor sparked a fire which eventually roared into a 20-plus year career in the music industry. Marcie’s passion for music and deal-making still burns like an inferno today.

Marcie Allen Van Mol has leveraged her music industry experience to negotiate high-profile partnerships between the world’s leading brands and artists. As President of music experiential agency, MAC Presents, based in Flatiron/NYC, Marcie has brokered and executed multi-faceted programs on behalf of brands including: Sony, Southwest 30

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Winterim experiences at the Nashville Banner and Nashville Scene with building her passion for photography and photojournalism. She points emphatically at her four years on the Harpeth Hall volleyball courts under the zealous training of Coach Pat Moran as a huge force in focusing her values and sharpening her instincts.

Airlines, Microsoft, Verizon, Samsung, Citi, Miller, Delta, AT&T and artists including Foo Fighters, The Rolling Stones, Green Day, Billy Joel, John Legend, Lady Antebellum, Imagine Dragons, Chance the Rapper, and Keith Urban.

She is an eleven-time nominee and six-time winner of Billboard’s “Concert Marketing and Promotion Award” and has been named to Billboard’s “Women in Music” list every year since 2010.

Marcie was included in Billboard’s “Branding Power Players” list in 2016 and the publication’s “40 under 40” list in 2013 and has also received the publication’s “Humanitarian Award”. Variety Magazine selected Marcie to its 2015 “Power of Women: New York Impact List,” representing the most powerful women in the entertainment industry.

Marcie currently sits on the board of directors for The Country Music Association, serves on the advisory board for Berklee College of Music, and recently completed terms with the board of directors for Global Poverty Project and Musicians on Call.

Marcie was a member of the 2016 Cannes Lions Entertainment Music jury and served on the 2016 Clio Music jury.

Prior to starting MAC Presents, Marcie owned and operated Nashville/Atlanta-based MAD Booking & Events, which produced more than 100 music festivals across the country, including On the Bricks in Atlanta, Dancin’ in the District in Nashville, and Voodoo Music Fest. In 2004, she found an untapped niche in the market and charged full speed ahead: MAC Presents was born on her dining room table in Green Hills. Marcie recounts those days saying, “Alison Krauss and Union Station were my first client and my second client was Cracker Barrel. And I thought, ‘Wait a minute, I can put them together.’”

Marcie credits many Harpeth Hall teachers such as Art Echerd and Peter Goodwin with notable influence in her life. She cites her

“When Harpeth Hall made it for the first time to the state volleyball tournament in Chattanooga,” Marcie says, “We looked out into the stands, and the first people we saw were our teachers. They made the long trek to cheer for us. I will never forget that.”

Marcie maintains that the collaboration and discipline needed to become a state championship-bound athlete taught her some of the hardest won lessons she still draws upon regularly in her storied professional career—a career which recently culminated in being named one of Billboard’s Top 100 Powerful Women in Music.

Volleyball was such a predominant force in her young life that three years ago, she decided to make a gift for automated nets in the Harpeth Hall Athletic and Wellness Center and dedicated them to Coach Moran and her 1991 teammates with a commemorative plaque.

In 1992, Marcie enrolled at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee where a vibrant music scene awaited her. As a freshman, she was elected social chairman for her sorority, Tri-Delta, and for three years booked bands on riverboats, Beale Street, and on campus. She was ahead of curve on the upcoming bands—always knowing who would hit the top of the charts well before they even made it fully onto the music scene. Before her senior year at Rhodes, she secured a summer internship in Washington, D.C. and was soon offered a position as Live Nation’s (Cellar Door Concerts) director of marketing.

The now 43-year-old recalls that summer of being scooped up by the music industry: “The first summer I was there, I had been at work a week, and Phish was headlining Nissan Pavilion. My mentor and boss Dave Williams asked me to take a golf cart to pick up someone who’d be playing onstage with Phish. He didn’t say who it was. So I round the corner, and Dave Matthews is at the gate with his guitar. I had followed Dave’s live shows across the southeast for much of my college years. Dave says, ‘Scoot over. I’m driving.’

I finally felt a part of the music industry. I had made it inside a place whose walls were once designed to keep women out.’”

Marcie also heavily credits her nontraditional upbringing for building the mental and emotional fortitude that it takes to succeed as a woman in a customarily cutthroat industry. Marcie was raised by her two grandmothers—“The strongest women I have ever known.

They are the metaphorical and literal house that built me”. Nancy SPRING 2017 31

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TRUSTEES 2O16-2017

Allen (d.2008) and Ginny Freeman were the maternal forces that enrolled Marcie in Harpeth Hall and held her accountable for taking advantage of the educational opportunities that it offered. Music runs generations deep in Marcie’s DNA. She is the third generation of her family to work in the music business, following her grandfather DJ “Hossman” Bill Allen (d.1997) and her aunt Bebe Allen Evans, a 1971 Harpeth Hall alumna, who manages The Charlie Daniels Band.

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Even while the accolades and honors continue to accumulate, Marcie will be the first to tell you that the success on paper and in the form of awards all means nothing unless you have the right people with whom to enjoy the achievements. Those people are her husband, family and friends—many of whom are also Harpeth Hall alumnae.

Marcie’s friends describe her as fiercely loyal, passionate, and straight-talking. Her business colleagues add such adjectives as persistent, tough, and a shrewd negotiator.

Marcie now focuses significant effort on helping other women reach their career goals. One example is the Manhattan Magnolias brunch group that Marcie founded once she moved her company to New York City in 2010. Women in various industries and some fellow Harpeth Hall alumnae gather on a quarterly basis to eat, pep talk, and build one another up in a city that can be as cutthroat as it is inspiring.

Marcie thanks Harpeth Hall for instilling the self confidence that she has drawn upon to become a savvy and successful businesswoman. She has a knack for taking calculated risks and outworking the competition to deliver. Her courageous decisions, coupled with the focus and drive to finish are the hallmarks of her leadership.

Marcie’s success has allowed her to give back through various contributions to the Nashville and New York communities and specifically to the relief effort in the wake of Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Her documentary film, Beach 119, coupled with Marcie’s relentless volunteer work in the Rockaways resulted in her being recognized at the White House in 2013 as a Champion of Change. Marcie has served on the Harpeth Hall Head’s Young Alumnae Council as well as the National Advisory Council. She continues to host Harpeth Hall students as interns at MAC Presents’ office each year during Winterim.

Upon marrying her sixth grade sweetheart five years ago, Derek Van Mol, Marcie became a devoted stepmother to two girls, commuting between Nashville and New York City every other week.

Mary Holine is a member of Harpeth Hall’s class of 2022. Fellow Harpeth Hall alumna Jennie Stevens Witherspoon ’94 writes, “I remember her well from high school and have a vivid picture of her with a huge smile leaving assembly singing the senior song. We’ve bonded now over the role of being mothers of Harpeth Hall girls.

She inspires me on a daily basis to be the best I can in my career and as a mother. However, I have to say I am most blessed that my 32

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daughters get to know Marcie personally and look up to her as a strong, successful woman.”

Back in New York, it’s time for Marcie to head out of the office, sweet tea in hand, to teach a Branding class as an adjunct professor at NYU’s acclaimed Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. She has traded her company president hat for her proverbial teacher hat as the blustery New York wind hits her face, binder under arm— a woman on a mission. Just like the Harpeth Hall teachers who inspired her, she is taking her talents to the front of the classroom to do the same for a few lucky aspiring music executives.

Marcie knows that to whom much is given, much is expected.

She delivers on that bargain. Students line up at the end of class as the bell rings instead of scattering out the door like typical college students to thank her personally and to seek internships. They now know her, and they are inspired.

Jon Meacham Jon Meacham is a Presidential historian and a Pulitzer Prizewinning author. He is also Contributing Editor at TIME, former Managing Editor of Newsweek, Executive Vice President and Executive Editor at Random House.

He is a graduate of The McCallie School and The University of the SouthSewanee. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, John received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University and also holds five other honorary doctorates.

Jon and his wife Keith have three children: Sam who attends Montgomery Bell Academy, Mary ’23, and Maggie who attends The University School of Nashville.

Rachel Reeves Settle ’94 Rachel graduated from Harpeth Hall in 1994 and received her undergraduate degree from The University of Virginia. Rachel previously worked at LifePoint Hospitals as an analyst in capital management, development, and strategic planning.

Rachel has served as the Harpeth Hall Alumnae Association President and as an ex officio member of the Board of Trustees. She has chaired the Distinguished Alumna Committee, served on the Head’s Young Alumnae Council, the National Advisory Council, the Alumnae Annual Fund Leadership Gifts Committee, and as Reunion Class Chair.

Rachel and her husband Will Ed have a son, Edwards, who attends St. Paul Christian Academy and a daughter, Rebecca, who attends Julia Green Elementary School.

Jack Wallace Jack is a graduate of the University of Alabama. He is an Executive Vice President of Willis Towers Watson of Nashville and also manages the Louise Bullard Wallace Foundation. Jack returns to the Board of Trustees having served previously from 2009 to 2015. Jack has served on committees including Building and Grounds, Finance, Property, Strategic Planning, and Trustees and Governance.

He also served on the Head of School Search Committee in 2013-14. Jack has three sisters, Elizabeth “Betsy” Wallace Taylor ’80, Elena Wallace Graves ’79, and Anne Wallace Nesbitt ’76 and his mother was Louise “Dede” Bullard Wallace ’53. Jack and Elizabeth have three daughters, Ansley Wallace Cire ’06, Gray Wallace ’12, and Lili Wallace, who graduated from Ensworth High School. Their son, Jake, graduated from Brentwood Academy.

Mandy Haynes Young ’85 Mandy is a member of the Harpeth Hall Class of 1985.

She is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and received her J.D. from the University of Tennessee. She is an AV-Rated attorney in the Government, Administration and Regulatory group and Healthcare Regulatory and Transactions group at Butler Snow. Mandy has served on the Head’s Young Alumnae Council and the Alumnae Annual Fund Leadership Gifts Committee. She has chaired her class reunion numerous times and has regularly participated in Upper School Career Day. Mandy and her husband Stephen served as 5th Grade Class Chairs during the public phase of The Next Step Campaign. Mandy and Stephen have a daughter, Mary Neely ’21, and two sons, Haynes and Adam, who graduated from Montgomery Bell Academy.

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