Newly elected chair of the Dartmouth Board of Trustees Laurel Richie ’81 will join Executive Vice President Rick Mills for a Dartmouth community town hall meeting at noon on Monday. Richie plans to talk about what she hopes Dartmouth can accomplish in her time leading the board and to answer questions from the audience.

 “I look forward to hosting Laurel at this town hall meeting and introducing her to our broader community,” says Mills. “She has a unique ability to help Dartmouth see ourselves in new ways that combine a sense of authenticity and excitement.”

The event, which is open to all members of the Dartmouth community, will be held from noon to 1 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 18, in Spaulding Auditorium at the Hopkins Center for the Arts.

Richie, who began her three-year term as chair in June, is a consultant for Teach for America, helping the organization achieve its vision of developing promising future leaders to grow and strengthen the movement for educational equity and excellence. She also serves on the board of Synchrony Financial, a financial services company that is the nation’s largest provider of private-label credit cards.

She is a former president of the WNBA, and as head of the Women’s National Basketball Association was the first African American to lead a major professional sports league.

After graduating from Dartmouth with a major in policy studies, Richie began her career in marketing, spending 24 years with the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather, where she was a senior partner. In 2008, she joined Girl Scouts of the USA as senior vice president and chief marketing officer, leading the revitalization of the iconic brand.

Richie, who was elected to the board as a charter trustee in 2012, succeeded Bill Helman ’80 as chair. At a town hall meeting in May, Helman talked about his time leading the board.

Next week’s town hall meeting is part of the ongoing series of community discussions Mills launched in October 2015.