Pamela Zilly Trustee

2025 -

Pamela Zilly is a senior financial services executive with more than 30 years of experience providing advice to companies in need of capital or operational restructurings. Ms. Zilly retired as a senior managing director in the restructuring and reorganization advisory group at The Blackstone Group L.P. in 2009. Prior to joining Blackstone in 1991, she worked for three years at Chemical Bank. Ms. Zilly began her career in investment banking at E.F. Hutton in 1977.

Ms. Zilly recently Co-Chaired Connecticut College’s record-breaking $317 million Capital Campaign. Ms. Zilly was elected to the College’s Board of Trustees in 2005 and served as chair of the Finance Committee prior to being named chair of the Board in 2012. She retired from the Connecticut College Board in 2023, following the successful conclusion of the Capital Campaign.

An active supporter of the performing arts, Ms. Zilly joined the board of the American Theatre Wing in 2012 where she serves as a Tony Award voter, a member of the Executive Committee, and chair of the Finance and Investment Committees. She joined the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre Board of Trustees in 2019 where she is a member of the Executive Committee and serves as chair of the Investment Committee.

Ms. Zilly majored in economics and American history at Connecticut College, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude and with distinction in the major. She went on to earn a Master of Science degree in Industrial Administration from the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University.

Ms. Zilly and her husband, John Schaefer, a retired Morgan Stanley executive, reside in New York City and Martha’s Vineyard.