BREAKING NEWS: King’s Announces Termination of Primacorp Partnership with Change of Board Members
Photo Courtesy of The King’s College Website
UPDATE: Monday, April 24 3:00 pm – In today’s Community Update, Dean of Students David Leedy told the student body that the new board of The King’s College is meeting for the first time on the evening of Tuesday, April 25.
“We are still in serious ongoing dialogues with another institution, actually a couple institutions, but they are not yet final,” Leedy said. “We do know that May 1 is College Decision Day for students, especially prospective students, to make a decision. That's a week from today. We're doing everything in our power to get clarity to you in the next week.”
Leedy also stated that instead of another in-person Community Update before the end of the semester, any further updates will be sent via email.
ORIGINAL – The King’s College officially ended its partnership with Primacorp Ventures and switched out members of the Board of Trustees, according to an email announcement from Chairman Henry Morriello sent on the evening of Friday, April 21.
“The King’s College and Primacorp Ventures, Inc. have mutually and amicably agreed to end our collaboration agreements,” Morriello said, “including with respect to board representation and involvement in operations.”
King’s sent out the email announcement during a school-wide staff and faculty thank-you dinner hosted in the City Room on Friday evening. There was no verbal announcement from the executive administration about the board change during the event.
“Someone sitting next to me at the dinner saw the email, read it, and allowed me to read it,” said Associate Professor of Politics Dr. David Tubbs. “In turn, we allowed others sitting at our table to read it.”
“I saw the email on the way home,” said Associate Professor of Communications and Humanities Dr. Stephen Salyers.
The four board members connected to Primacorp now no longer serve on the school’s board.
“In accordance with this termination, the board has accepted the resignations of Trustee members Rodney Bergen, Jim Cunningham, Soon Chung, and Marvin Kehler,” the email read.
Bergen, Cunningham, Chung and Kehler were officially appointed to the Board of Trustees in April 2022.
King’s 2021 tax forms state that “the College entered in various agreements… with an organization, TKC Operations, Inc. (TKCO), which is a subsidiary of Primacorp Ventures, Inc. TKCO has the ability to nominate for election a non-majority four of the nine trustees of the College. In accordance with the current bylaws and the agreements with TKCO, board membership consists of nine members, four of which were elected after being nominated by TKCO.”
However, this number does not include the appointment of Stockwell Day to the Board of Trustees in October 2021. Day became the Vice Chairman one month after joining the board, then took the role of Chairman in January 2022 after the departure of Tim Dunn.
Day told the Empire State Tribune in a September 2022 interview that as a consultant, “one of the companies that I have done work for is Primacorp.”
With the addition of Day, the former makeup of the school’s Board of Trustees included a majority of five Primacorp-connected members, despite the conditions outlined in King’s tax forms.
Unlike the other Primacorp-connected board members, Day is not leaving King’s at this time.
“Stockwell Day will continue in his role as Interim President to assist with transition matters,” the email read. The email did not include an update on the search for a new president.
“Everyone in the King's community regrets that the partnership with Primacorp was not more fruitful, but we should not dwell on this now,” Tubbs said. “We need to move ahead, but without acting rashly. As we go forward, we will have opportunities to reflect on the partnership with Primacorp in an effort to learn from that experience.”
Morriello then introduced eight new members of King’s Board of Trustees in the email announcement, making the board 11 members in total not including the President.
“These new trustee members will join me and continuing trustees David Palomares and Susie Wilson as we seek God’s guidance for how The King’s College can move forward,” Morriello said.
The eight new board members are Andrew Mills, John Beckett, John Urban, Matt Dieterle, Steve French, Bethany Pickett Shah, Alexandra Harrison Gaiser and Christopher Ross.
Andrew “Andy” Mills, a senior fellow at King’s, “served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees for The King’s College from 2004 to 2014, and served as its acting president from May 2007 through December 2008 and again from October 2012 to July 2013” according to the King’s website. Mills also serves as the co-chairman of the Grace & Mercy Foundation and was previously the executive chairman and co-CEO of Archegos Capital Management.
Beckett has been a founding board member of The King’s College in New York City since its launch in 1999. Beckett was previously listed on the Board of Trustees page as an Emeritus member. According to his bio on the King’s website, Beckett “serves on the board of Campus Crusade for Christ, International, and is a director of Graphic Packaging Corporation, an NYSE-listed manufacturing company. He served as the college’s interim chairman from May 2007 to December 2008.”
Urban is a former Goldman Sachs partner and is currently the President of the real estate portfolio Urban Capital LLC. His bio states that Urban “joined Goldman Sachs in 1992 as a Vice President, became a Managing Director in 1996 and was named General Partner in 1998. He retired from Goldman Sachs in 2002.” His son David Urban is a current student at King’s in the House of Winston Churchill.
Dieterle currently works as the President of Whole Pets Market LLC, where he “actively manages a chain of retail pet food and supply stores” with locations in Texas, New Jersey and New York City. Two of his children, Samuel and Aleksei, are current students at King’s in the House of Churchill.
“This may be the first time since King's reopened in Manhattan that a parent of currently enrolled students will serve on the Board,” Tubbs said. “This is a notable development because it is important for the Board to know more fully what King's does well as a college and where it needs to improve.”
French is the Global Ambassador for Lifework Leadership and the Founder & Chairman of Lx Partners. French graduated from Northeastern Bible College in 1980. Northeastern Bible College, after its closure in 1990, gave its financial assets and alumni to The King’s College as it reopened in 1999. A history page on the King’s website explains that “all of Northeastern’s alumni came under the King’s umbrella and became part of its community” as a result of the gift.
Shah graduated from King’s in 2012 with a B.A. in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics (PPE), then graduated with a J.D. in Law from Northwestern University’s School of Law in 2016. She currently works as an attorney at Jackson Walker LLP in Houston, Texas.
“I’m humbled by the opportunity to join the Board of Trustees at my alma mater, The King's College, as we shepherd in a new era at the school,” Shah said in a personal LinkedIn announcement. “There is no institution that has shaped me more than King’s, and I am eager to give back to an institution that has given so much to me.”
Gaiser also graduated in 2012 from King’s with a PPE degree, then earned her J.D. in Law from the University of Texas at Austin in 2015. She currently works as the Director of Regulatory Affairs at Bitcoin company River Financial. “Prior to joining River,” her bio states, “Ms. Gaiser was at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, first in the General Counsel’s office and then as the youngest ever Executive Secretary.”
Ross graduated from King’s in 2010 with a B.A. in PPE and from Fordham University’s School of Law with a J.D. in Law in 2015. According to his trustee bio, “Ross is a senior managing associate in the Washington, DC office of Sidley Austin LLP, where he advises clients on high-stakes, government-facing litigation.” Ross also serves King’s as the President of the Alumni Association Executive Committee and has been a member of the committee since 2011.
“King's has played such an important role in my life, and my education there shaped so much of the person and the professional that I am today,” Ross said in a LinkedIn update. “I cannot wait to give back. Having a gospel-centered college in the heart of New York City that trains students to help shape and lead our national institutions is more important than ever. I'm looking forward to working with our newly revamped Board to ensure that this promise lives on for generations to come!”
“This has been a challenging and uncertain season for our students, faculty, staff, and the entire King’s community,” Moriello concluded. “I understand that hearing a decision is preferable to the uncertainty of waiting, but every week that goes by allows us to continue working to save The King’s College.”
“The current composition of our Board of Trustees provides grounds for hope,” Tubbs said. “I believe that the trustees, collectively, have the knowledge and experience to get us through the current crisis and put the College on a secure financial foundation. To be sure, the entire King's community can help the Board in this endeavor by praying, sharing constructive ideas and offering tangible forms of support.”
Melinda Huspen is the Managing Editor of the Empire State Tribune. She is a junior at The King’s College studying Journalism, Culture and Society.