MEET THE TRUSTEES Ning Zhao, Ph.D. P’17 Ning Zhao, Ph.D., is a company director, vice president of operations and head of corporate human resources at WuXi PharmaTech Inc., a New York Stock Exchange-listed openaccess capability and technology platform company serving the global pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries. As an innovation-driven and customerfocused global company, WuXi AppTec helps its collaborative partners worldwide shorten the discovery and development timeline and lower the cost of drug and medical device development through efficient and cost-effective R&D solutions.
co-founder and a member of the board, where she spearheaded the establishment of the company’s analytical services operations. She has been instrumental in growing the company from a single chemistry laboratory of 7,000 square feet to a premier global organization of 10,000 employees and over five million square feet of office, laboratory and manufacturing space in China, the United States and Iceland with the mission of enabling the advancement of some of the most innovative health care products for patients worldwide. She and her husband, Ge Li, Ph.D., founder, chairman and CEO of WuXi PharmaTech, have a son Michael Le-Cheng Li ’17.
“I am honored to join the Peddie Board of Trustees and to work with other outstanding board members to contribute to the continued success of Peddie. Peddie is a great school with a focused mission and a unique culture that
Dr. Zhao studied at Peking University as an undergraduate and received her Ph.D. in natural product and analytical chemistry from Columbia University. She began her industry career in 1995 and held various positions with increasing scientific and management responsibilities at Wyeth, Pharmacopeia and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Zhao then joined WuXi PharmaTech as a
blends the traditional and the modern, the domestic and
other schools, but that is because of good leadership, and we must continue that.” Indeed, monitoring the financial stability of the school has been one of the main priorities of the trustees since the school’s incorporation in 1864. The trustee minute books from the earliest years are filled with references to the Baptist founders praying over the desperate state of the school — and then opening their wallets time and time again to save the school.
While the days of trustees having to sacrifice their own personal wealth may be behind them, board members still demonstrate a financial commitment to the school, Silverman said. She said the high cost of independent schools will be an area of concern to all school leaders in the coming years. “Tuition is very high and we need to continue to be affordable to people. That is a huge concern to me,” she said. “Yet what we offer now compared to what we offered when my oldest daughter began Peddie, there is no comparison.” She said innovative programs and extra encounters such as the Fab Lab, Sophomore Bike Trip and Signature Experiences are invaluable in offering an exceptional education. “What is expected now is infinitely greater and all those things cost money,” she said. Yet Silverman, who attended independent school herself, said she passionately believes in the mission of Peddie for offering “intangibles” that make a difference in the lives of students. “By necessity, teenagers should be preparing to move away from their parents,” she said. “But while they’re doing that, you want them surrounded by loving adults. I think we owe that to kids. And I can’t imagine any faculty going above and beyond more than the Peddie faculty does.”
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here were several saviors among those trustees during the school’s infancy. Charter trustee Enoch Allen mortgaged his own property to raise several thousand dollars that he donated. He was said to have lived in poverty in order to see the school’s plan succeed. Trustee Thomas B. Peddie famously gifted the school $25,000 to save it from bankruptcy in 1872. And in 1878, at a time when the school had just been seized in bankruptcy and was to be auctioned at a sheriff’s sale in Trenton, there is legend of Rev. William Wilson (for whom Wilson Hall was later named) entering the sheriff’s office, slapping $10,000 down on the table to purchase the school and promptly selling it back to the trustees for 25 cents.
the international. I am committed to using my past 20 years of scientific and operational experience in startup biotech and multinational pharmaceutical companies to serve the Peddie community to my best capacity.”
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