Managing Director, Cambridge Associates, LLC

Cambridge Associates, LLC is a global investment consulting firm that works with endowed institutions and family offices. At Cambridge Associates, she leads the areas of governance and strategic/operational planning for nonprofit, endowed institutions including universities, colleges, foundations, hospitals, independent research institutes, and museums. Before joining the firm in 1981, Ms. Spence was a consultant at Bain & Company. Prior to that, she was Associate Dean of Harvard College, a financial position focusing on the undergraduate college. She has authored numerous research reports and working papers on such topics as the economics of research universities, competitive factors, conflicts of interest, the effect of “fair value” accounting on asset values, governance in the post-SOX era, and the implications of a market decline on institutions highly dependent on endowment. Ms. Spence is an Overseer and serves on the audit committee of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, one of the Harvard teaching hospitals. She is also on the Board of the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation, which funds liberal arts colleges and the performing arts. Previously she served on the Board of New York City Performing Arts Spaces, a web-based venture aimed at sourcing performance space for musicians, actors, and dancers (now merged with “Fractured Atlas”); the Zellerbach Family Foundation, which funds community programs and the arts in the Bay area; and several independent schools. Raised in China, Taiwan, Israel, Nigeria, and Washington, D.C., she holds a BA in economics from Wellesley College, an MA in East Asian Studies from Harvard University, and an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business (1975).