From GP to LP: Lane MacDonald Joins Harvard

We still don’t know who’s going to fill Dan Feder’s shoes at Princeton, but do now have information on who’s taken the open private equity position at Harvard Management Co. It’s Lane MacDonald, who most recently was a general partner with Boston-based private equity firm Alta Communications.

MacDonald succeeds Kevin Tunick, who left Harvard earlier this year to run his own show at The University of North Carolina.

“I was really looking for a great platform when I decided to leave Alta,” MacDonald says. “I assumed I’d stay on the GP side, but wanted to explore a variety of things, and this feels like a very good fit.”

Prior to joining Alta Partners in 1999, MacDonald was a principal with J.W. Childs & Associates. Before that, he did stints at both BancBoston Capital and Robertson Stephens.

Moves from general to limited partner are unusual, but not unprecedented. For example, his new Harvard colleague John Shue was once a venture capitalist with Audax Group. And then there’s Sallie Shuping Russell, who moved from LP (Duke University’s endowment) to GP (Intersouth Partners) back to LP (Quellos Group, now part of BlackRock).

Harvard Management Co. manages over $40 billion in assets. Its private equity program is led by Peter Dolan.