Lawton Wehle Fitt is an investment banker and a highly-experienced corporate director.
She is currently Chairperson of the Board of The Progressive Corporation, Lead Independent Director of The Carlyle Group and an independent director of Ciena Corporation and Micro Focus International PLC. She previously served on the boards of Thomson Reuters Corporation, ARM Holdings PLC, and others.
She had a long career at Goldman Sachs where she worked for more than two decades in the investment banking, equities and asset management divisions of the firm, in the London and New York offices. For many years, she led Goldman Sachs’ Equity Capital Markets business with technology companies. She was elected a partner in 1994.
After retiring from Goldman Sachs, she was the Secretary (Chief Executive Officer) of the Royal Academy of the Arts in London, an independent institution dedicated to exhibition, education and debate in the visual arts.
She also has deep experience as a trustee for not-for-profit organizations and foundations with particular emphasis on gender equality, human rights, education and the arts.
She has been named to the Fortune Magazine list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in American Business and is the recipient of the University of Virginia’s Distinguished Alumna Award.
She received her undergraduate degree in European History from Brown University. After graduating from Brown, she was a Peace Corps volunteer in Burkina Faso and worked for a non-profit organization promoting economic equality for women, before earning an MBA at the Darden School of the University of Virginia.