Donnalisa Barnum ('86)

A native of Whittier, California, Donnalisa has the distinction of working for only two companies during her 35-year finance career. She started as a Corporate Finance Analyst at Morgan Stanley in New York in 1981, and then moved to Capital Group Companies in 1985 as a summer intern between her first and second year at UCLA Anderson. She returned there full-time after graduation, first as an analyst managing money in the Retail, Food, Beauty, and general Consumer areas. In addition to managing money, she worked with pension fund clients including Stanford University, Hoaq Hospital, along with many municipal employee funds and Fortune 100 companies. She was also tasked with building an investment management business in Australia. After six years, she gave up her research responsibilities and became a diversified portfolio manager investing in equities primarily in the U.S. and in Global Markets as well.

After 15 years, Donnalisa moved to mutual funds and gave up her client responsibilities and was tasked with managing a substantial pool of capital as a portfolio manager. This was primarily in Capital’s largest mutual fund, The Growth Fund of America which continues to be the largest mutual fund in the U.S. with assets of $150 billion. She also served on the Audit and Investment Committees. Donnalisa also has several passions she has pursed as a volunteer. She co-chaired her last six Stanford Undergraduate class reunions from the 15th – 40th in a fundraising role. She served on Stanford’s Humanities and Sciences Council for 5 years and recently completed her five-year term on the Board of the Stanford Alumni Association “SAA”. Donnalisa received several awards at Stanford, the highest was the Governor’s Award. She also served on the Board of Embrace, a start up with a revolutionary low-cost incubator which was deployed in areas around the world with little access to hospitals and high infant mortality rates.

Donnalisa has also served on the Board of Trustees at Saint John’s Hospital Foundation in Santa Monica, California for the past 15 years where she has been active on the Board Affairs and Investment Committees. Donnalisa made an important commitment to UCLA Anderson by serving on the Board of Trustees and Executive Committee and as co-chair of the $320 million Centennial Campaign. Recently, she completed an eight-year commitment to the UCLA Investment Company Board of Directors. She has a soft spot for Saint Matthew’s Parish School where she was Parent’s Council President and served on the School Board, the Investment Committee, as well as the Vestry for five-years.

She met her husband of 40 years, Bill Barnum, on a cable car in San Francisco and they have three adult children. Donnalisa received her BA in English with honors from Stanford, an MA in English from the University of Sydney, which she pursued while on a Rotary Graduate Fellowship, and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.