The William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust Selects Nancy J. Cable as New Executive Director 

Dr. Nancy J. Cable, Chancellor of the University of North Carolina Asheville since 2018 and former president of the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations in Florida, as Executive Director of the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust. She will begin her work in January 2023 at the Trust’s office in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Dr. Cable will be the fourth Executive Director during the trust’s 57-year history. Since its inception in 1965, the Trust has made over 2,000 grants totaling more than $750 million, primarily to recipients in the states of Florida, New York, North Carolina, and Virginia.

Throughout her long and impressive career, Cable has held senior leadership roles at Davidson and Guilford colleges in North Carolina, as well as the University of Virginia.

As president of the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations in Florida, Cable managed grants and partnerships with colleges, universities, foundations, and key partners such as the Nature Conservancy, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Harvard Institute for Public Health and PBS, among many others. She also inaugurated the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations Fellows program at the Aspen Ideas Festival.

The synergy between Cable’s background and the Trust’s mission impressed the Trustees during the national search process.

A graduate of Marietta College, Cable holds graduate degrees from the University of Vermont and the University of Virginia, where she earned her Ph.D. She also earned a certificate from Harvard’s Institute for Educational Management.

Cable will succeed Kenan’s Interim Executive Director Daniel W. Drake, to whom the Trustees are deeply indebted for his strong stewardship during this transition.

The mission of the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust, a New York perpetual trust, is to improve lives by helping and educating people, particularly in underserved communities, through grants supporting birth-12 education, higher education, arts and culture, community development, and health and human services.