Barry, Deal Booth elected Rice trustees

BY B.J. ALMOND
Rice News staff

Rice University alumnae Subha Barry and Suzanne Deal Booth have been elected to the Rice Board of Trustees.

Barry is managing director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Deal Booth is founding director of the Friends of Heritage Preservation.

SUBHA BARRY		SUZANNE DEAL BOOTH

“Subha’s experience with integrating diversity into one of the world’s leading financial companies, and Suzanne’s commitment to protecting visual and cultural heritage around the world will give our board special insight into issues that have become increasingly important as Rice extends its international reach and interaction,” board Chairman Jim Crownover ’65 said. ”They are wonderful additions to our board.”

President David Leebron said Barry and Deal Booth have already benefited Rice in many ways. “Subha’s international expertise and network were a huge help when Sallie Keller-McNulty and I made our visit to India in 2007 to meet with educational, business and government leaders,” he said. “Suzanne’s active involvement with the Rice Art Committee has helped expose our students to all aspects of art, and she has also helped Rice build collaborations with Houston’s art community and museums through the Suzanne Deal Booth Collaborative Arts Fund.

”Both bring expertise and experience that will contribute richly to the objectives we’ve set in our Vision for the Second Century, extending our international reach and Houston outreach among them.”

Barry earned a Master of Business and Public Management degree and a Master of Accounting degree from Rice’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management in 1985 after receiving a Bachelor of Accounting degree from Bombay University in India. She joined Merrill Lynch in 1989 and spent 13 years as a financial adviser and branch manager in the private client group. In 2001 she created the firm’s Multicultural and Diversified Business Development group to help establish Merrill Lynch as the pre-eminent wealth-management firm among diverse and multicultural markets. She headed the group until 2005 when she was appointed to her current role. Most recently she was head of Global Diversity and Inclusion for Merrill Lynch & Co., with responsibility for managing and integrating existing and new diversity efforts across the corporation worldwide. 

Barry serves on the board and the Corporate Circle Advisory Committee of the National Council for Research on Women. She is a Corporate Advisory Council member of the White House Project and a Hidden Brain Drain Task Force member. She also serves on the advisory board for VOICE, Hyperion’s imprint for women.

In 2000 Barry won the Women’s Fund of New Jersey Award for Outstanding Achievement in Banking and Finance. In 2006 she was inducted into New York City’s Academy of Woman Achievers. The National Organization for Women honored her as one of its 2008 Women of Power and Influence. A three-time cancer survivor, Barry supports and coaches newly diagnosed patients with coping strategies and work/life balance.

Barry serves on the Jones School’s Council of Overseers and has been extensively involved with Rice by attending alumni events in the New York area and Jones School events on campus. Her husband, Jim, is also a Rice alumnus (’84). They are Rice Associates and established the James and Subha Barry Fellowship in Business to provide financial assistance to students at the Jones School. One of their children — Tara — is an undergraduate at Rice (Class of 2010).

Native Texan Deal Booth graduated cum laude from Rice in 1977 with a B.A. in art history. Through the work-study program at Rice and her later studies at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts, where she received an M.A. degree in art history and a certificate in art conservation, Deal Booth benefited from the direct guidance of legendary Houston art collector and philanthropist Dominique de Menil.

Inspired by de Menil, Deal Booth has made a career of preserving art and history. She has worked at such notable institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Menil Collection and, with a grant from the Smithsonian Institution, at the Museums of New Mexico. Her postgraduate fellowship, funded by the Kress Foundation, took her to the Centre Pompidou in Paris, where she restored important 20th-century paintings. She then moved to Los Angeles to work at the Getty Conservation Institute and later as a consultant at the J. Paul Getty Trust. 

Deal Booth and her husband, David, created the Booth Heritage Foundation, which provides many cultural activities and community services, and founded the Friends of Heritage Preservation, a nonprofit organization that responds to critical preservation needs in the U.S. and abroad. They also established the Booth Family Rome Prize Fellowship for Historic Preservation and Conservation at the American Academy in Rome. Deal Booth recently started a publishing company, Orsini Press, which published “Venus Rising” by her father, Harry William Deal.

She serves on boards for the Centre Pompidou Foundation, the American Academy in Rome, the Geffen Playhouse at UCLA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University and the Art Committee for the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. 

At Rice, in addition to co-chairing the Rice Art Committee, she serves on the Humanities Advisory Board and the Art History Advisory Committee. She has supported lecture series, museum collaborations and commissioned art pieces, such as the James Turrell public art installation that will be located by the Shepherd School of Music. She is a member of Rice Associates and the William Marsh Rice Society.