In 2003 Fortune Small Business Magazine named Andover’s newest trustee the 11th richest small business exectuive in the U.S. On April 12, Head of School Barbara Landis Chase and President of the Andover Board of Trustees Oscar Tang ‘56 announced that PA alumnus Sidney Knafel ’48 has been elected as a charter trustee. Mr. Knafel has been a member of the Andover Development Board since 1999, and he has served as Chairman of the Strategic Planning Committee of the Addison Gallery of American Art and Chairman of the Addison Board of Governors. Mr. Knafel will begin serving on the Andover Board of Trustees on July 1, 2005. After graduating from Harvard University as an undergraduate in 1952 and receiving his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1954, Mr. Knafel joined the army for a short period of time before moving to New York City and working for15 years as an investment banker. In 1971 he founded Vision Cable Communications Inc. and served as Chair until he sold the company in 1981. In 1985 Mr. Knafel co-founded Insight Communications, the ninth-largest cable company in the United States. As a Harvard University alumnus, Mr. Knafel donated $ 20 million to the University in 1996 for the creation of a center to house government and international studies in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS). He was then named the chairman of the Overseers’ Visiting Committee to the Center for International Affairs (CFIA) at the University, and has more recently been named the national chairman of the Harvard University Campaign. In 2004 Mr. Knafel, in his capacity as a trustee of Wellesley College, donated $ 8 million for the purpose of establishing four assistant professorships, one each in the Humanities, Social Sciences, Natural Sciences, and the Diana Chapman Walsh Assistant Professorship. Mrs. Chase said to the Andover Gazette, “As trustee of Wellesley College and as national chairman of the recent Harvard University Campaign, as well as in his roles at the Addison, Sidney Knafel has been a champion for educational programs and the facilities that support them. He is wise and generous, and we look foward to having him with us at the table through the crucial implementation phase of the Academy’s Strategic Plan.” Mr. Knafel is also a Director of NTL Inc., the third largest telecommunications and cable operator in the United Kingdom. Mr. Knafel is a Managing Partner of the private investment company SRK Management Co. In addition, Mr. Knafel is on the Board of Directors at VirtualScopics, a medical research firm, and is the Chairman of BioReliance Corporation, a biological testing company. He is a Director of IGENE Biotechnology, Inc., which focuses on “the development, production and marketing of specialty ingredients for human and animal nutrition,” and of General American Investors Company, a New York-based investment management firm in operation since 1927. Mr. Knafel also serves as a Chairman of the Rogosin Institute, a non-profit independent affiliate of New York Presbyterian Hospital. The Rogosin Institute focuses on medical research and specifically on the treatment of kidney disease and cardiovascular disease, with research programs for diabetes and cancer. Mr. Knafel is a trustee of the Juilliard School of Music in New York City.
