Marie-Josée Kravis (née Drouin; born 11 September 1949) is a Canadian businesswoman and philanthropist.
Marie-Josée Kravis | |
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| Born | Marie-Josée Drouin 11 September 1949 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada |
| Education | University of Ottawa |
| Occupation(s) | Businesswoman, philanthropist |
| Spouses | |
Early life and education
editMarie-Josée Drouin was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, of French and English parentage and was the youngest of seven children. She earned an MA in economics from the University of Ottawa. In 1994, she was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 2006, she received the Légion d'honneur award.
Career
editShe serves on the international advisory board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and on the boards of LVMH, MoMA and Publicis S.A and was involved in a number of Canadian boardrooms throughout the 1980s.[1] From 1971 to 1984 she was a consultant to the Hudson Institute of New York and executive director of the Hudson Institute of Canada.
She has served on the boards of CIBC,[1] the Ford Motor Company, the Standard Life Insurance Co., Hasbro Inc., Hollinger International, Vivendi Universal and IAC/InterActiveCorp.[2] She was a board member at Conrad Black's Hollinger International until late 2003. Black was later charged with fraud and obstruction of justice. Kravis was called as a witness at Black's trial in 2007 and testified that she had been unaware of the corporate malfeasance during her tenure.[1] Additionally, she previously served as vice-chair of Canada's Royal Commission on National Passenger Transportation and co-chaired a national commission on prosperity and competitiveness. She served on the binational dispute settlement panel established under the NAFTA agreement. She is a member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group.
Media
editShe has been a regular columnist for La Presse, the Montreal Gazette and the Financial Post of Canada, and she has contributed to the Wall Street Journal and numerous other publications. She hosted a weekly television show on the public television network TV Ontario. She is also the author with B. Bruce-Briggs of Canada Has a Future and with Maurice Ernst and Jimmy Wheeler of Western Europe: Adjusting to Structural Change.
Philanthropy
editTogether with Henry R. Kravitz, her husband, she is ranked the 25th highest donating individual according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy.[citation needed] Their primary focuses have been in arts and culture and medicine. In other fields, she sits on the board of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. She is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Arts and Culture
editAmong the cultural organizations they have supported are: Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, where they established a composer-in-residence program and the Marie-Josée Kravis Prize for New Music, one of the largest new-music prizes.[3][4] At the Museum of Modern Art, whose board she joined in 1994, she served as Board President from July 2005 – 2018 and as of July 2021 she replaced Leon Black as Board Chair.[5] She is also a supporter of the Metropolitan Opera, the Tate Museum and Somerset House, London. She is a board member of the Qatar Museums Authority and a member of the International Council of the Prado Museum.[2]
Medicine
editShe chairs the selection committee of The Henry R. Kravis Prize in Nonprofit Leadership, which is awarded for innovations in non-profit work. At the Mount Sinai Medical Center, she serves as a major patron and with her husband has given close to $30 million for heart research. At the Sloan Kettering Institute, she and her husband established a chair in Human Oncology and Pathogenesis in 2006. In 2013 with a gift of $100 million they established a Center for Molecular Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She also serves as vice-chair of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and chair of the Sloan Kettering Institute.
Personal life
editIn the 1970s she was linked to Jean-Pierre Goyer, a minister in the government of Pierre Trudeau.[1] She married Montreal Symphony conductor Charles Dutoit in 1982; they subsequently divorced. In 1994, she became the third wife of billionaire financier Henry Kravis.[6][7] The Kravises have homes in New York City; Southampton, New York; Meeker, Colorado; Palm Beach, Florida; and Paris, France. Their principal residence is a Park Avenue triplex.[8][1]
References
edit- ^ a b c d e Thomas, Jr., Landon (17 May 2007). "Parallel Paths Diverging Sharply". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 May 2021.
- ^ a b Business Week[dead link](Business Week profile) accessed 20 July 2012
- ^ Gereben, Janos (22 October 2018). "Kravis Prize, One of New Music's Largest Awards, Goes to Unsuk Chin". www.sfcv.org. Retrieved 2 May 2021.
- ^ Cooper, Michael (11 October 2018). "Unsuk Chin Wins $200,000 and New York Philharmonic Commission". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 May 2021.
- ^ Greenberger, Alex (27 April 2021). "Marie-Josée Kravis Named MoMA Board Chair, Succeeding Leon Black". ARTnews.com. Retrieved 2 May 2021.
- ^ "CHRONICLE". The New York Times. 21 February 1994. Retrieved 2 May 2021.
- ^ Landon Jr., Thomas (17 May 2007). "Paths diverge for Conrad Black and an ally". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
- ^ DeShazer, Danae. "Portraits of New York wealth: Henry Kravis." Time Out New York, 17–23 January 2008