Caltech Elects Three New Trustees

Three distinguished business leaders — Timothy J. Sloan, Michelle “Mich” Mathews-Spradlin, and Sabeer Bhatia (BS ’91) — have been elected to the Caltech Board of Trustees.

Timothy J. Sloan is president and chief operating officer of Wells Fargo & Company, one of the world’s largest banks. In his current role, he oversees the San Francisco–based bank’s four main business groups: community banking, consumer lending, wholesale banking, and wealth and investment management.

He has worked at Wells Fargo for 28 years, beginning as a vice president with the bank’s loan adjustment group in 1987 and advancing into positions of increasing leadership. During his rise through the company, he served as chief financial officer and chief administrative officer; he has held several leadership positions within Wells Fargo’s wholesale banking group—which includes commercial banking, corporate banking, commercial real estate, and investment banking—and currently also is head of the group.

Sloan earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from the University of Michigan, and he is a member of the advisory board of the university’s Ross School of Business. He also serves on the board of overseers of the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens; as a trustee for Ohio Wesleyan University and the City of Hope; and as a member of the board of directors of California Resources Corporation.

 

Mich Mathews-Spradlin is an angel investor, primarily in the technology sector. She previously served as a top executive at Microsoft Corp., beginning her career in 1989 as a United Kingdom–based consultant and then joining the company in the United States in 1993. By the time she retired from Microsoft in 2011, she had become the company’s top female executive, serving as chief marketing officer and senior vice president.

She headed the company’s global marketing efforts, overseeing a staff of several thousand and a multibillion-dollar budget. She helped drive Microsoft’s global growth, leading marketing efforts for brands such as Windows, Office, and Xbox.

An advocate for female advancement within Microsoft, Mathews-Spradlin headed the company’s network and mentoring program for women.

She currently serves on the boards of the Wendy’s Company; You & Mr Jones; OANDA Corporation; the Bouqs Company; Bitium Inc.; and UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television. She also serves on the digital advisory board of Unilever and is a guest lecturer at both USC and UCLA.

She has a business degree from the University of Brighton in England

 

Sabeer Bhatia, a pioneer of web-based email, is cofounder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Sabse Technologies Inc., a mobile-telecommunications company.

He was the cofounder of Hotmail Corporation, guiding that company’s rise from a 1996 start-up into one of the world’s largest email providers. Microsoft acquired Hotmail in 1998, eventually turning it into Microsoft Outlook.

Among other accolades, Bhatia was named one of Time magazine’s “People to Watch” in international business in 2002, and he was a recipient of the TR100 award, presented by MIT to 100 young innovators. In 1998, both the San Jose Mercury News and Point of View magazine named him one of the 10 most successful entrepreneurs of the year.

A well-known philanthropist, he supports charities including Room to Read, Home of Hope, and the Miracle Foundation. His financial contributions led to the rebuilding of his high school in Bangalore, India, and the creation of a high-speed Ethernet network at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Pilani, India.

In addition to a bachelor of science degree with honors from Caltech, he received a master of science degree from Stanford University.