CSV Advisor

Mary C. Falvey AB A&S '63

President
Falvey Associates
San Francisco

Mary Falvey has had a diverse career as a corporate director, management consultant and operating executive; an appointee to senior advisory positions in the federal government; and a trustee in the performing arts, education, health care and international relations arenas. As a director, she has particular experience with audit, finance, and investment committees and with family-owned businesses. She is a member of the Board of Governors of the San Francisco Symphony, Trustee Emerita and Presidential Councillor of Cornell University, and Board President of San Francisco Classical Voice. She is a former member of the National Commission on Social Security Reform and Trustee of the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds.

Since 1982, Ms. Falvey has served as an independent management consultant, with a focus on strategy for early stage companies and clients in the life sciences, financial services, automobile, distribution, software, venture capital, and education industries. She began her consulting career at McKinsey & Company where, over a seven year period, she served clients in the New York, Amsterdam, and Zurich offices. She is also an investor in early-stage technology companies.

As an operating executive, Ms. Falvey’s experience was in the financial services, consumer products, and automobile industries. She served as Vice President, Finance, of Shaklee Corporation in San Francisco; Senior Vice President, Administration, Director, and member of the Executive and Operating Committees of Blyth Eastman Dillon in New York; and Vice President of Citibank, also in New York. She lived through the life cycle of her family’s business, Falvey Autos, Inc., which was founded by her father and owned a number of imported automobile dealerships in the Detroit area. As Chairman and President, she brought company back from near-bankruptcy to strong growth and profitability in an extremely difficult competitive and economic environment through acquisitions, divestments, targeted marketing and operational improvement, and ultimately sold the business to two other established family businesses.

She was a director of Basic American, Inc., a privately held company in the diversified food industry from 2007-2011 and a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Regional Advisory Board of Wells Fargo Corporation from 2007-2010. Past boards also include Golden Gate Bank, Novus Packaging, Inc., San Francisco Performances (Chair), Saint Francis Hospital Foundation (Chair), Smithsonian Institution Libraries, the World Affairs Council of Northern California, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, the Composite Committee of the United States Medical Licensing Examination, and the Williamsburg Charter Foundation (a component of the Bicentennial of the Constitution). She is a member of Women Corporate Directors, the Band of Angels investment group, International Women’s Forum, and the Pacific Council on International Policy. In 1992, she served as Executive in Residence in Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management.

Ms. Falvey is a graduate of Cornell University and the Harvard Business School.