Michelle D. Shepherd Named Chair of the Board of Trustees

The Tower Hill School Board of Trustees has named Michelle D. Shepherd Board Chair. Shepherd joined Tower Hill’s Board in 2010 and has served in various roles during her appointment, from Chair of the Board’s Committee on Trustees and Chair of the Head of School Search Committee to a member of the Institutional Strategy and Positioning Study Working Group.

 

“Michelle Shepherd’s commitment to Tower Hill, to excellence, to an inclusive and transparent board and school community is steadfast,” Head of School Bessie Speers said. “She brings a strong business acumen, while also being a parent and a scholar of school governance. She is especially well suited to lead the Board forward during this exciting Centennial chapter.”

 

Shepherd retired from Bank of America in 2008 as the company’s East Division Executive. In that role, she managed 2,400 bank branches holding $130 billion in deposits, staffed by 25,000 associates in key markets such as Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Miami. She served as the company’s Senior Privacy Executive and sat on the Management Operating Committee and the Global Diversity and Inclusion Council.  

 

She has served as a director of the American Heart Association, Delaware Affiliate, and as a trustee of Delaware State University. Currently, she is a director of the Mary Campbell Center in Wilmington and chair of Georgetown University’s Alumni Admissions Program in Delaware. Her daughters — Isabel '20 and Ella '22 — attend Tower Hill. 

 

Current Board Chair Earl Ball, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education and former Head of the William Penn Charter School, will continue his nearly 20 years of leadership at Tower Hill as a trustee. Executive Committee members Ellen Kullman, Bill Daiger and Linda Boyden will remain as Vice Chair, Treasurer and Secretary, respectively.

 

“Tower Hill has benefitted enormously from Dr. Ball’s steadfast leadership the past two decades, and we are grateful that he will continue to share his breadth of independent school knowledge and experience as a trustee,” Speers said. “Tower Hill is so very fortunate to have dedicated, enthusiastic board leadership with the vision and commitment to steward this school through its Centennial, advancing its mission of academic excellence not only locally but as a national model for engaged citizenship and academic innovation within a welcoming and inclusive community.”