Three new members named to Board of Trustees

EVANSTON – Three new members have been elected to the Northwestern University Board of Trustees. 

Fernando Chico

A prominent businessman in Mexico and Latin America, Chico has a wealth of experience in finance, having founded the brokerage that became Grupo Financiero Inbursa, one of Mexico’s largest financial groups.

Since 2003, Chico has presided over and held a controlling stake of Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste, which operates airports in southeastern Mexico, Puerto Rico and Colombia. He is chairman and CEO of Promecap, a private equity investment firm with more than $2 billion in projects in a wide range of industries. Chico recently completed a nine-year run as president of the trust of Universidad Iberoamericana, one of Latin America’s most prestigious universities.

Outside of the business arena, Chico presides over Mexico’s Légion d’Honneur Francaise chapter and leads the French-Mexican Strategic Council, a high-level group working in economic, educational and cultural exchanges between the two countries.

He also served on the Investments Committee of the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund for more than a decade and was the lone member of the U.N.’s Latin American Global Compact Board.

Chico received his bachelor’s in business administration from Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City and an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.

Lynn Hopton Davis

A two-time graduate of Northwestern and an active advocate for the We Will campaign, Davis is Co-Head and Senior Managing Director of the Leveraged Debt Group at Columbia Management Investment Advisers, LLC. As chair of the company’s credit committee, she oversees approximately $8 billion in assets.

Davis, who previously worked as managing director of AIG SunAmerica, founded the Los Angeles regional board of the Northwestern University Leadership Circle (NULC) and co-chairs the LA Regional We Will Campaign Committee.

She and her husband, Greg, have funded multiple endowments at Northwestern, including a general scholarship for undergraduates, a fund for undergraduate summer research in the hard sciences and an endowed professorship in the field of nanoscience.

Davis received her bachelor’s in Economics with distinction from Northwestern in 1982 and her MBA from Kellogg in 1986. She is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society. Her two children, Haley and Clayton, are both currently enrolled at Northwestern.

Jianming Yu

Yu, who has been recognized as one of China’s most notable investors, is co-founder and managing partner of New Horizon Capital, a leading Chinese private equity firm. In 2016, he founded two parallel funds, Advantech Capital -- which focuses on innovative technology investments -- and Redview Capital, a growth fund.

Yu was named one of China’s “Top Venture Capitalists” by Forbes in 2011, one of several recognitions by financial publications. He is also vice chairman of the China Private Equity and Venture Capital Association and vice chairman of the Beijing Private Equity Association.

He previously was CEO of Rui Feng Trust, CEO of a drug discovery start-up and a consultant with McKinsey & Company.

Yu has two biology degrees: an undergraduate degree from Tsinghua University in China and a doctorate from Harvard University. He later earned his MBA at Kellogg.