Five New Trustees Join Minneapolis Foundation Board
The Minneapolis Foundation is pleased to welcome five new members to its Board of Trustees. Juliana Batista, Laura Bohlander, Brenda Child, Kate Kelly, and Tim Palmer attended their first board meeting as Trustees last week.
“These new Trustees bring diverse perspectives, deep experience in their fields and a shared commitment to strengthening this community, and I look forward to their contributions on our board,” said R.T. Rybak, President and CEO of the Minneapolis Foundation.
The Board of Trustees is composed of three dozen residents of the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro area who are leaders in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. All the new members have been appointed to four-year terms.
The new Trustees are as follows:
Juliana Batista currently serves as the Vice President, Human Resources, International at General Mills. In this role, she provides strategic HR leadership for talent management, organization and team effectiveness, and employee engagement across General Mills International locations. She has over 20 years of experience across various HR roles at General Mills in the U.S. and South America. Prior to her current role, she was the leader of General Mills’ Global Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging (DI&B) team, where she was responsible for setting the company’s DI&B strategy and efforts. As a native of Brazil, Batista has a passion and dedication for inclusion, along with a strong track record of building diverse pipelines, serving as a strategic business partner and driving a culture of belonging at General Mills. She has been an instrumental voice in The Familia Network, a Hispanic/Latinx affinity network at General Mills. Before joining General Mills, Batista held a variety of human resources positions with Unilever in São Paulo, Brazil.
Laura Bohlander is a former elementary educator who has been the LRE Foundation director since 2017. She served as a board member at Way to Grow from 2018 to 2023.
Brenda J. Child is Northrop Professor of American Studies and former chair of the Departments of American Studies and the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of award-winning books of American Indian history, including Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900-1940 (1998), which won the North American Indian Prose Award. Her 2014 book My Grandfather’s Knocking Sticks: Ojibwe Family Life and Labor on the Reservation won the American Indian Book Award and the Best Book in Midwestern History. Child’s book for children, Bowwow Powwow (2018), won the American Indian Youth Literature Award for best picture book. She served as a member of the board of trustees of the National Museum of the American Indian-Smithsonian and was President of the Native American & Indigenous Studies Association. Child was born on the Red Lake Ojibwe Reservation in northern Minnesota, where she served as a member of a committee writing a new constitution for the 12,000-member nation.
Kate Kelly is a former Executive Vice President and Regional President of PNC Bank, Minneapolis-St. Paul who has more than 30 years of experience in the banking industry. Before joining PNC in 2017, she served as President and CEO of Minnesota Bank & Trust. In 2008, Kelly, along with Heartland Financial and a group of local bankers and investors, founded Minnesota Bank & Trust. Before that, she was a regional president of Bremer Financial. She also worked at U.S. Bank for 18 years, most recently as district manager in corporate banking. Kelly is on the board of ServeMinnesota, where she was previously board chair and received the 2018 Outstanding Commissioner national award. Kelly is also a board member with Ampact, Inc. and the Economic Club of Minnesota. In addition, she is a member of Chapter One, Minnesota Women’s Presidents Organization, Minnesota Chapter of Women Corporate Directors, Minnesota Women’s Economic Roundtable, Women Business Leaders of the U.S. Health Care Industry Foundation, and a Senior Advisory Board Member of University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management’s Carlson Women Global Connect. She holds a master’s degree in finance from the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management and a bachelor’s degree in economics and humanities from the St. Catherine University in St. Paul.
Tim Palmer is a Senior Fixed Income Portfolio Manager at PMA Asset Management in St. Louis Park, Minn., with responsibilities in total return portfolios, insurance strategies, credit, and team leadership. Before joining PMA, Palmer held senior roles in fixed income portfolio management and investment strategy at Nuveen Asset Management, American Express Financial Advisors (now Columbia), Atlas Capital Management LLC, and Investment Advisors Inc. His areas of focus have included credit, multi-sector strategies, derivatives, and global and emerging markets. He has also consulted on investment process design and ESG (environmental, social, and governance) implementation. A longtime Minneapolis resident, Palmer has an MBA in finance from Columbia University Graduate School of Business and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of St. Thomas. He is a CFA charter holder and serves on the investment committee for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in St. Paul.
