Judy Lewent ’70 Presents Kurtz Seminar

Release date: March 10, 2008 |

When Judy Lewent ’70 assumed the position of chief financial officer at Merck & Co., Inc. in 1990, she became one of the most powerful women in corporate America and the first woman to serve as the CFO of a major corporation. On Monday, March 10, she will talk about how her experiences at Goucher helped shape her successes in the business realm as the guest lecturer at the college’s third annual Myra Berman Kurtz ’66 Seminar. 

This free public talk, titled “From the Classroom to the Boardroom: A Journey That Began at Goucher,” will be held at 7:30 p.m. in Buchner Hall in the college’s Alumnae/i House. Tickets must be reserved by calling 410-337-6333 or by e-mailing boxoffice@goucher.edu.

Until 2007, Lewent was the executive vice president and chief financial officer of Merck, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Soon after she joined the company in 1980 as director of acquisitions and capital analysis, she pioneered a new planning model for the company that was based on the Monte Carlo method, a sophisticated, mathematical form of analysis that predicts results based on changes in several variables at the same time.

This ability to combine financial theory and risk management with scientific theories — principles she first encountered and developed after graduating with an economics degree from Goucher College and a masters of science in business from the Sloan School of Business at MIT — helped establish Lewent’s reputation as an innovative thinker.

During her career with Merck, she helped drive the company’s external growth through creative joint ventures, including a consumer pharmaceuticals collaboration with Johnson & Johnson and the co-founding of the animal health company Merial with the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Aventis.

Following a series of promotions to positions of increasing responsibility, Lewent was named Merck’s president of human health for Asia in January 2003 and led the company’s Asia division to create business markets while addressing worldwide concerns about the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

In July 2005, Lewent relinquished her role as president of human health for Asia and assumed strategic planning responsibilities once again, this time as executive vice president and chief financial officer. She retired from this role and the company in July 2007.   

Lewent is a member of the board of directors of Dell Inc. and Motorola, a trustee of the Rockefeller Family Trust, a life member of the MIT Corporation, and a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. 

The Kurtz Seminar series was endowed by the late Myra Berman Kurtz ’66 and her husband, Dr. Stuart Kurtz, to present speakers at Goucher College who will inspire undergraduate students to pursue careers in a variety of fields. The programs are presented under the auspices of the Roxana Cannon Arsht ’35 Center for Ethics and Leadership. Supported by a $2 million gift from her daughter, Adrienne Arsht, the Arsht Center at Goucher College explores issues in ethics and leadership across the range of liberal arts disciplines.