Who Governs Minerva? The Two Boards, By Name

Two Minervas, two boards, two kinds of masters.

The nonprofit university is governed by senators, Nobel laureates, and philanthropy CEOs — all unpaid. The for-profit company answers to Benchmark, TAL, and ByteDance. Two people ever sat on both boards. Both are now gone.

Every name below is taken from filed documents: IRS Form 990 Part VII (fiscal years ending June 2020–2025, EIN 46-2589747) and SEC Form D related-persons (CIK 0001546672). Affiliations are public-record roles, stated where well established and omitted where they aren't.

Board 1 · The nonprofit (Minerva University)

Every director serves ~1–2 hours a week for $0. The pattern: political cover (a senator as chair), academic halo (two Nobel laureates), and the charter-school philanthropy network that also funds the university. In FY2025 the founder exited, the ByteDance founder exited, a Nobel laureate exited — and the chair's gavel passed to a charter-school CEO.

Director	Who they are	FY20	FY21	FY22	FY23	FY24	FY25
Bob Kerrey	Ex-US Senator (Nebraska); ex-president, The New School	Chair	Chair	Chair	Chair	Chair	Director
Ben Nelson	Founder, Chairman & CEO, Minerva Project (for-profit)	Founder/Director	Founder/Director	Founder/Director	Founder/Director	Founder/Director	—
Diane Tavenner	Founder & CEO, Summit Public Schools (charter network)	—	Director	Director	Director	Director	Chair
Stacey Childress	CEO, NewSchools Venture Fund (venture philanthropy); ex-Gates Foundation, ex-Harvard Business School	Director	Director	Vice Chair	Vice Chair	Vice Chair	Vice Chair
Michael Horn	Co-founder, Clayton Christensen Institute; education author	Director	Director	Director	Director	Director	Director
Randy Schekman	Nobel laureate (2013, Medicine); UC Berkeley professor	—	—	Director	Director	Director	Director
Venki Ramakrishnan	Nobel laureate (2009, Chemistry); ex-president, Royal Society	—	Director	Director	Director	Director	Out Dec 2024
Wendell Pritchett	UPenn professor; ex-interim president, UPenn; ex-chancellor, Rutgers–Camden	—	—	Director	Director	Director	Director
Bertil Anderson	Ex-president, Nanyang Technological University (Singapore)	—	Director	Director	Director	Director	Director
Richard Melnick	No affiliation disclosed in filings	—	—	Director	Director	Director	Director
Robin Goldberg	No affiliation disclosed in filings	—	Director	Director	Director	Director	Out Sep 2024
Zhang Yiming	Founder, ByteDance (TikTok); led Minerva’s $57M Series C	Director	Director	Director	Director	Director	—
Phil Bronner	No affiliation disclosed in filings	Director	—	—	—	—	—

FY = fiscal year ending June 30. Source: Form 990 Part VII, filed returns FY2020–FY2025.

Board 2 · The for-profit (Minerva Project, Inc.)

Named in SEC Form D filings as directors or executive officers. This is the money's board: the seed investor's seat (Benchmark, uninterrupted since 2012), two successive Chinese strategics (TAL, then ByteDance), and prestige independents. Read every document in ourSEC filing browser.

Person	Role across filings	Represents
Ben Nelson	Executive Officer + Director, all five filings	Founder/CEO — the constant
Kevin Harvey	Director, all five filings	Founding partner, Benchmark Capital — the seed money’s seat
Bangxin Zhang	Director, 2014–2017	Founder, TAL Education — first China seat
Rong Luo	Director, 2019	CFO, TAL Education — second China seat
Yiming Zhang	Director, 2019	Founder/CEO, ByteDance — Series C lead’s seat; gone by 2022
Philip Lader	Director, 2017–2022	Ex-US Ambassador; WPP chairman
Gwynne Shotwell	Director, 2017–2022	President & COO, SpaceX
Wendy Kopp	Director, 2019–2022	Founder, Teach For America / Teach For All
Alex Peng	Director, 2022	Joined after the Chinese directors exited

The bridge directors both walked away.

Only two people ever sat on both boards: founder Ben Nelson, and ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming (nonprofit director FY2020–FY2024; for-profit director 2019–2022). In the FY2025 nonprofit filing, neither name appears. Nelson still signs the for-profit's SEC filings as CEO — but he no longer governs the university. The founder governs the vendor, not the school.

Same story on the China side: TAL's founder directed the for-profit in 2014, TAL's CFO in 2019, ByteDance's founder in 2019 — and by the 2022 Form D, every Chinese director is gone. Whatever Beijing's edtech giants once wanted from Minerva, the board seats suggest they stopped wanting it around 2021–2022.

Two Minervas, two boards, two kinds of masters.

Board 1 · The nonprofit (Minerva University)

Board 2 · The for-profit (Minerva Project, Inc.)

The bridge directors both walked away.

SEC filing browser

The Money deep dive

Project vs University

The Silence Stops With You.