Governor Youngkin appoints four to the Board of Visitors

For what is perhaps the penultimate time, Governor Glenn Youngkin has appointed members of the University of Virginia’s governing body. Four new names were announced for the Board of Visitors on June 20.

They are:

• James Donovan of Upperville, Vice Chairman, Goldman Sachs
• John F. Harris of Charlottesville, private investor
• H. Eugene Lockhart of Palm Beach, Florida, former CEO, Mastercard; Co-Founder, Mission OG
• Calvert Saunders Moore of Locust Valley, New York, President, Ivor & Co., LLC

Donovan has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Virginia but did not attend as a student. He is also on the board of the Karsh Institute of Democracy. Donovan had been nominated to serve as Deputy Secretary of the Treasury in the first administration of President Donald Trump but withdrew his name from consideration.

Harris a 1982 graduate of the McIntire School of Commerce. He’s also on the board of the Virginia Film Festival and according to his bio he served as managing director and chief financial officer of The Carlyle Group from 1997 to 2007 and served there as a senior advisor through 2011. He served as executive producer for a sports documentary about the 2015 UVA Men’s Baseball team that won the NCAA Championship.

According to his bio on MissionOG, Lockhart graduated from the University of Virginia with a bachelor of sciences and an MBA from the Darden Graduate School of Business. He founded the company in October 2014.

Moore is a 1990 graduate of the College of Arts and Sciences and the daughter of Thomas A. Saunders III and Jordan Saunders. The trio made a $10 million contribution to the Jefferson Scholars Foundation in 2021.

Youngkin may have one more slot to fill.

On June 9, the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee declined to confirm the appointment of Ken Cuccinelli to fill a vacancy left after Youngkin fired Bert Ellis. The party-line vote was 4 to 8 with a status of “failure to report.”

And that’s the subject of the next story.

Before you go: This story is not really a cliff-hanger though it may seem that way. I wrote this story for the June 23, 2025 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement and had not been aware of the details of the dispute over Cuccinelli’s appointment to the Board of Visitors and the Virginia Senate’s vote to not confirm the nomination. But, the June 24, 2025 edition has more details. And that will be posted here soon!