Reed Welcomes Four New Trustees

Julie Cheng ’84, Ritankar “Ronti” Pal ’93, Carla Beam ’76, and Peter J. Bragdon join the board.

Reed recently welcomed four new trustees who bring experience from the fields of law, finance, academia, and business.

Julie Cheng ’84 is the owner and principal of New Bamboo Consulting, a boutique firm specializing in business and management consulting with a focus on early-stage companies and nonprofits, especially those that contribute to the development of new products for the global health community. She has spent more than 30 years in the biopharmaceutical industry in the business development and corporate legal fields, with a focus on international intellectual property. Julie is a coauthor of “Socially Responsible Licensing, Euclidean Innovation, and the Valley of Death,” which was published in the Stanford Journal of Law, Science & Policy. She graduated from Reed with a BA in chemistry in 1984 and then earned a JD from University of New Hampshire.

Ritankar “Ronti” Pal ’93 is the chief operating officer of Molekule, an air purification company on a mission to deliver clean air to everyone everywhere. He previously served as chief financial officer of PayActiv, a financial-wellness platform. From 1993 to 2012 he worked on Wall Street; he was managing director at Citigroup and, later, the managing director and head of U.S. Dollar Interest Rates Trading at Barclays Capital. He attended Reed and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) on a full scholarship to the 3-2 program, graduating from Reed with a BA in mathematics in 1991, and with a BS in engineering and applied science from Caltech in 1993. He is a member of the President’s Advisory Council, has served as an Alumni Fundraising for Reed volunteer, and as a reunions gifts chair. He and his wife Jaya have two children.

Carla Beam ’76 spent more than 40 years leading and advising Alaska private, public, and nonprofit entities in communications, public affairs, development, and governance. She retired in 2015 from her final position as University of Alaska vice president of university relations and president of the University of Alaska Foundation. She has been a volunteer leader, serving on numerous nonprofit boards. Currently she chairs the Anchorage Museum Association board and serves as a member of the Anchorage Museum Foundation board. She has volunteered with Alumni Xenia, Alumni Fundraising for Reed, and her 45th and 30th reunion committees. She has also served as an alumni local host, admission volunteer, career network volunteer, and an Oral History Project participant.

Peter J. Bragdon serves as executive vice president, chief administrative officer, and general counsel for Columbia Sportswear, which he joined in 1999. He previously served as chief of staff in the Oregon governor’s office, an attorney in the corporate securities and finance group at Stoel Rives, special assistant attorney general for the Oregon Department of Justice, and commissioner for the Port of Portland. He began his career as a journalist, serving as an intern at the Oregonian and then writing for Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report in Washington, D.C. He graduated from Amherst College with a BA in political science and went on to earn an MLS from Yale University and a JD from Stanford University. He and his wife Ellen have three children. His late father was former Reed President Paul Bragdon.