Three earn 2022 Alumni Award of Distinction

Torrence N. Boone ’87

As vice president of Global Client Partnerships at Google, Torrence Boone is responsible for driving the technology company’s strategy and multibillion-dollar business across a portfolio of the world’s largest global advertisers. He also co-leads Google’s New York office, the second largest in Google’s network.

Boone is recognized not only as a leader in the industry, but also as an advocate for ethnic diversity and inclusion in education and business. He is the former president of the New York board of Citizen Schools, a national education reform organization. Boone is also a corporate director for Macy’s and a former corporate director for Finish Line, a national specialty retailer.

Boone was raised in inner-city Baltimore, far from the bucolic PA campus. “When I came to Andover, the aperture on my view of the world was opened so expansively and motivated a hunger for exploration and discovery,” said Boone in a 2017 Andover magazine interview. “It was my big break.”

While a student at Andover, Boone was involved in dance, music, and theatre. He was president of the debate club and active in CAMD and Af-Lat-Am, organizations that “helped ground me and were critical in allowing me to extract the full power of the Andover experience,” he says.

As an alumnus, Boone became a member of the Alumni Council (1995–1999) and volunteered as a career mentor and an IRT (Institute for Recruitment of Teachers) Advisory Board member. He also played a key role in organizing Af-Lat-Am’s 50th-anniversary celebration in 2018. In acknowledgment of the guidance counselor at Baltimore’s Roland Park Junior High School who was responsible for matriculating a large number of minority students to Andover, Boone recently endowed the Marie Bessicks Scholarship Fund.

Boone holds a BA in economics with honors from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Awards and honors include: Financial Times, UPstanding Power List; Savoy Magazine, Top 100 Most Influential Blacks in Corporate America and Power 300 Most Influential Black Corporate Directors; One Hundred Black Men, Inc., Corporate Award; and A Better Chance, DreamBuilder Award.

Loyce LaShawndra Pace ’95

A leader in the federal government, Loyce LaShawndra Pace is assistant secretary for Global Affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), serving as HHS’s diplomatic voice on public health priorities when interacting with foreign countries and United Nations organizations. While much of her time recently has been spent getting COVID-19 vaccines and treatments to the world—as well as preventing another pandemic—her overall remit covers a range of global health access and equity issues.

Prior to joining HHS, Pace was the president and executive director of Global Health Council, a U.S.-based nonprofit that supports and connects public health professionals across 150 countries. She came to the role having held leadership positions in global policy and strategic partnerships at the LIVESTRONG Foundation and the American Cancer Society.

“We are privileged to have such a charismatic, energetic, committed, highly-effective global health advocate as Loyce Pace taking over the reins of the Global Health Council,” said Jono Quick, board chair at Global Health Council, in 2016. “On the global landscape, Loyce Pace has been an advocate not only for chronic diseases like cancer, but more broadly for health equity, health systems strengthening, and global health financing.”

From 2006 to 2011, Pace was director of regional programs for the American Cancer Society’s department of global health and was responsible for developing their first capacity-building and advocacy initiatives in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Additionally, she has worked with Physicians for Human Rights and served as an international development fellow for Catholic Relief Services, implementing community outreach projects throughout Senegal and The Gambia.

While a student at Andover, Pace was heavily involved with community engagement, helping tutor new immigrants for the Spanish GED and teaching biology to (MS)² scholars. She later joined the Alumni Council and served on its Non Sibi Committee from 2013 to 2017. In July 2022, Pace began a four-year term on PA’s Board of Trustees.

Pace earned a BA from Stanford and an MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She received the Johns Hopkins University Alumni Association’s 2022 Public Service Award.

Sandra A. Urie ’70

Sandra Urie is chairman emerita and a managing director at Cambridge Associates, a global investment firm. She assumed this position in 2016 after her 15-year tenure as CEO of the firm, a position she earned after 20 years of serving in various professional roles at the firm. She has long been committed to the advancement of women in the workplace, especially in finance.

With an undergraduate degree from Stanford University, Urie returned to Andover as a teaching fellow in Russian and admissions, eventually assuming the role of associate secretary of the Academy. After nine years at Andover, she enrolled at Yale School of Management, where she earned a master’s degree in public and private management. She then joined Cambridge Associates, where she focused on providing investment advice to endowed nonprofit institutions. Cambridge Associates now advises 70 percent of U.S. educational endowment assets and 40 percent of global foundation assets. Urie’s keen interest in the alignment of finance and social issues led to a seat on the board of Social Finance, US, a national impact finance and advisory nonprofit creating partnerships that measurably improve lives.

From 2007 to 2010, Urie was a member and vice chair of the Investors’ Committee of the U.S. President’s Working Group on Financial Markets. She currently serves on the boards of Social Finance, US, and The Crane Institute for Sustainability. She previously served on Andover’s Board of Trustees, the board of Stanford Management Company, and as vice chair of the board of 100 Women in Finance (formerly 100 Women in Hedge Funds).

In recognition of her career and her service on both nonprofit and corporate boards, Urie has been recognized widely with awards such as the Institutional Investor 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award, 100 Women in Hedge Fund’s 2016 North American Industry Leadership Award, and the 2014 Private Equity Trailblazer award at the Women’s Private Equity Summit.

A Phillips Academy trustee emerita, Urie is also an Andover Distinguished Service Award recipient (1998) and currently volunteers for the Boston regional committee for the Knowledge & Goodness campaign. Former Andover volunteer roles include class head agent, class secretary, and Reunion Planning Committee member as well as service on the Abbot Academy Fund Board and as a member of the Alumni Council.