November 21, 2002
Sylvia Mathews named to AMC Board
Sylvia M. Mathews, chief operating officer and executive director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is the newest member of the UW Academic Medical Center Board. She succeeds Janet Ketcham, whose term expired in June.
Mathews, who joined the board this summer, oversees finance, administration, legal affairs, advocacy, public affairs, and three of the Gates Foundation’s areas of giving: Pacific Northwest program, special projects and libraries. Before moving to Seattle in 2001, she was deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Clinton administration, and from 1997 to 1998 was assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff in the White House.
In 1995 she was named chief of staff to the secretary of the treasury, after serving as staff director for the National Economic Council and special assistant to Robert E. Rubin. She managed President-Elect Clinton’s economic transition team and worked in the private sector as an associate for McKinsey and Company, a management consulting firm, in Washington, D.C. from 1990 to 1992.
Mathews earned a bachelor’s degree in government, cum laude, from Harvard University in 1987 and a degree in philosophy, politics and economics as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University in England. She grew up in Hinton, W.V.
The Academic Medical Center Board advises Dr. Paul Ramsey, vice president for medical affairs and dean of the School of Medicine, in strategic planning and oversight of programs across UW Academic Medical Center, including the faculty practice plans, Harborview Medical Center, the School of Medicine, UW Medical Center, and UW Physicians Neighborhood Clinics.
“Sylvia Mathews brings a wealth of fresh ideas, talent and experience to the UW Academic Medical Board,” said Ramsey. “I am very grateful for the time and energy that she and all of her fellow board members contribute to our service.”
In addition to Mathews and Ramsey, other members of the board—all community volunteers—are Chair Dennis I. Okamoto and Vice Chair Ann Ramsay-Jenkins; Boh A. Dickey; Gerald Grinstein, the representative from the UW Board of Regents; Charlotte Guyman; Jonelle M.C. Johnson; Larry Pinnt; Brooks G. Ragen; Richard Scheumann; Orin Smith; Patricia Stanford; JoAnn Taricani and William VanNess. The group meets monthly.
