Dr. Nancy J. Cable was appointed as President of The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations in October of 2012. A nationally recognized leader in higher education, educational access, finance and affordability, and liberal arts curricula, she served as faculty member and dean at Denison University from 1977-1986, Guilford College from 1986-1991, and Vice President and Dean of Admission and Financial Aid at Davidson College from 1991-2005 leading a college wide effort to advance selectivity, diversity, financial capacity, and strategic planning. In this role and together with Davidson trustees, faculty and student leaders and alumni, she advanced the knowledge -- and national positioning -- of Davidson College into the top 10 liberal arts colleges in the nation. From 2005-2009, she served as Vice President for Development in the College of Engineering at the University of Virginia and later with UVa’s Semester at Sea Program. Following 3 years of service as Bates College’s Vice President, the Bates College Board of Trustees elected 
Dr. Cable as Interim President, a position that allowed her to help lead college wide efforts on governance, faculty and curricular issues, and matters of diversity and inclusion.

A member of Phi Beta Kappa, she earned her B.A. in history from Marietta College, a Master’s degree from the University of Vermont and her Ph.D. in higher education history from the University of Virginia. She also graduated from the Harvard University Institute from Educational Leadership. A noted writer on the history of American higher education, she has focused on the history of liberal arts colleges during the progressive era from 1870-1915. She has written articles on higher education governance, access and quality in selective college admission, and assisted in the writing and research for an amicus brief from a small group of liberal arts colleges for the Supreme Court’s Grutter case on preferential admission for underrepresented populations at highly selective colleges.

Dr. Cable is one of the charter founders of the University of Virginia Semester at Sea Desmond Tutu Program in Global Understanding and the CY Tung Scholars program on US-China Relations. She is a Fulbright Senior Specialist and has consulted with the Director of the Fulbright Center in Hong Kong on the development of the liberal arts curricula within the evolving Chinese higher education system.

Her professional service has included membership on many Boards of Trustees for schools and colleges, and includes the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, Marietta College, the National Conference of Christians and Jews, The College Board Task Force on Equity in Higher Education, The Council of Independent Colleges, Council for the Advancement and Support of Education Admission and Financial Aid Task Force, the Maine Public Broadcasting System, the WJCT Public Radio and Television Board in Jacksonville, and she currently serves as Chairperson of the Better Angels Society that advises and supports Ken Burns’ work as America’s leading filmmaker of long form historical documentaries. In January 2017, she was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the National Trust for the Humanities in Washington D.C.

Annie Bryan is the Foundations’ Senior Program Officer.  In this position she works across all program areas, with specific leadership of our Environmental Engagement, Stewardship and Solutions program and our End of Life and Palliative Care program.  Annie provides support to our grantee partners and stakeholders as we introduce our new strategic plan and develop partnerships that align with our philanthropic priorities.

Annie worked with the Foundations in 2015 as the Special Projects Manager and oversaw the series of Context Briefings that informed our trustee’s strategic planning process.  In this role she authored a compendium of information about the philanthropic opportunities across the nation and oversaw the staff’s contributions to the strategic planning process.  Prior to her work with the Foundations, Annie consulted with local foundations and nonprofits and served as the Director of Development for the Center City YMCAs in Charlotte, NC.  

Annie received her B.S. in Event Management from the University of Florida, where she was honored as the Most Outstanding Student Leader during the commencement ceremonies.  She received her J.D. from the University of North Carolina School of Law where she was the recipient of the Winston Crisp Award for Student Leadership. 

Annie serves as a member of the Women’s Board of Wolfson Children’s Hospital, as a member of the Advisory Council for the Birth and Newborn Center at Wolfson Children’s Hospital, and as a Delores Barr Weaver Fellow of the Women’s Giving Alliance

Doreen Gross has served the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations for 26 years as Grants Administrator, Vice President for Administration and beginning in 2014, the Chief Operating Officer. She oversees all Board of Trustees support functions and serves as Secretary to the AVDF Board responsible for all record keeping and Trustee matters of the Foundations. She oversees several key employees and provides leadership for all administrative functions of the Foundations. She directs the Local Initiatives Grant program and provides strategic advice and insight to the President and staff. Given her years of distinguished service, she is widely respected by grantees and foundations across America.

Doreen holds a BA from Lyceum of the Philippines University.

Doreen is a board member of Family Foundations, a Jacksonville nonprofit dedicated to building strong and financially stable families and individuals. She also serves on the board of We Filipinos Inc., a founding member of the Jacksonville Asian American Alliance, and was a Hull Fellow of the Southeastern Council of Foundations, a program for emerging leaders in philanthropy. In 2005, following a visit to the Philippines, Doreen helped establish a charity called READ Philippines, whose mission is to provide educational resources for schools in poor communities throughout the Philippines. To date, READ Philippines has sent school supplies and other educational resources to over 200 schools in the Philippines.

Dr. Knobel is a Senior Fellow in Higher Education. Knobel retired as president of Denison University having led the liberal arts institution from 1998 to 2013. He previously served as Provost and Dean of the Faculty of Southwestern University in Texas and earlier held academic leadership positions at Texas A&M University. In recognition of his achievements at Denison and in American higher education leadership, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education presented him the Chief Executive Leadership Award in 2012.

Knobel earned a B.A., cum laude from Yale University and a Ph.D. from Northwestern University. A historian of the United States, Knobel is a widely published scholar on the subjects of immigration and ethnic and race relations in North America. He is the author or co-author of books dealing with ethnic stereotypes and anti-immigrant hostility published by Wesleyan University Press, Simon & Schuster, and Harvard University Press and has contributed to scholarly journals published in both the US and the UK. Currently, Knobel serves as a Director of the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, a philanthropic supporter of higher education and the fine arts in the United States.

Tim Michel recently joined the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations as Chief Financial Officer. In this position he brings a seasoned perspective to the Foundations’ business planning, accounting, budgeting, compliance, financial reporting and analysis, and contributes to the Foundations’ strategic goals. Tim works closely with the AVDF President on all matters of financial and accounting work and provides leadership to short and long-term planning activities of the Foundations. 

Prior to joining the Foundations, Tim spent over thirty-two years in various financial management positions at The Ohio State University, including Director of Investment Operations/Endowment CFO where he established policies and procedures for the office that managed the $3.6 billion endowment fund; Assistant Treasurer, Cash Management and Investments; and Assistant Treasurer for Administrative Operations. 

Tim is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and a native of Ohio. He earned a BSBA, summa cum laude from The Ohio State University’s Honors Accounting Program.

Jasmine is Grants Manager & Senior Administrative Assistant. In this position, she oversees the day-to-day work within the grants management system, and she provides administrative and organizational support to the president and the chief operating officer.

Prior to joining the Foundations, Jasmine was a coordinator in events planning at OneJax Institute at the University of North Florida.

Jasmine holds a BA from the University of North Florida in Spanish with a minor in Communications. She also studied Arabic Language at the American University in Cairo. She recently received the BUZZ Magazine Top 30, Under 30: Future Leaders of Jacksonville Award for her musical work and organization of multicultural community events in the city.

Kristi Walters is the Foundations’ Interfaith Program Fellow and Senior Advisor to the President.  In this position, Kristi leads our Interfaith Leadership and Religious Literacy program, providing support to our grantee partners and stakeholders as we introduce our new strategic plan and develop partnerships that align with our interfaith and religious literacy philanthropic priorities. In addition, as a senior advisor Kristi provides leadership, counsel and support to the AVDF President on human resources matters, as well as with strategic planning and governance activities.

Prior to joining the Foundations, Kristi spent almost twenty years as a practicing attorney and law firm leader, where she oversaw the human resources function for over 400 lawyers and staff and practiced with special expertise in advising religious organizations, institutions of higher education and non-profit organizations on a wide range of employment and human relations legal matters. Prior to receiving her law degree, Kristi worked in higher education admissions at Davidson College and Duke University.   

Kristi earned her B.A., cum laude, in Religion from Davidson College. She earned her J.D. with honors from the University of North Carolina School of Law, where, after several years in practice, she received the Outstanding Recent Graduate Award. 

Kristi serves in volunteer and leadership roles for a number of non-profit and bar-related organizations, including Community School of the Arts, Davidson College’s Kuykendall Scholarship Selection Committee, the Church in Vocation Group, and the Mecklenburg County Bar’s Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Board.  A committed and involved church leader, Kristi is an ordained Elder at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, North Carolina and a passionate advocate for global outreach, playing a key role on the team supporting the Renguti Primary School outside of Nairobi, Kenya.  Kristi was an AVDF Fellow at the Aspen Ideas Festival in 2016. 

For the past eighteen years Dow Davis has held the position of Chair of the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations’ Board of Trustees.

Dow spent twelve years at the Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government as a senior development officer, focusing in Asia, and later as the Executive Director of the Center for Business and Government, a major research center at the Kennedy School.

Prior to his position at Harvard University, Dow spent over twenty years in financial services which included senior leadership roles in corporate and multinational US banking and four years as Managing Director of Bank of Boston’s subsidiaries in Australia. He later was a senior vice president with Bank of New England, managing a private banking group.

Dow is a graduate of Middlebury College. He spent several years as a staff officer and company commander in the Army and later received an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Currently living in Cotuit, MA, Dow has been active in several non-profits including as past Treasurer and Trustee of the Lucy Mackenzie Humane Society, member of the Corporation of Mt. Ascutney Hospital, Class Agent for Middlebury College and a former member of the Town of West Windsor Development Review Board. He is also a Member of the Corporation of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and a past trustee of Middlesex School. His wife Sue is a Speech and Language Pathologist.