Shirley Wang Elected to Columbia’s Board of Trustees

Shirley Wang (BUS’93) has been elected to Columbia’s Board of Trustees. She is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Plastpro Inc., a successful company that makes fiberglass doors and has won numerous awards and accolades for its streamlined and adaptive approach to manufacturing.

“We’re very grateful to have an entrepreneur of Shirley’s stature join our Board,” said Trustee co-chairs Lisa Carnoy (CC’89) and Jonathan Lavine (CC’88). “She brings with her an energy and skill set that are of enormous value to the work we do for Columbia.”

“Shirley Wang’s many contributions to society are deserving of our admiration, and she is a wonderful addition to Columbia’s Board of Trustees,” said University President Lee C. Bollinger. “We are, as always, indebted to alumni like her who have achieved great professional success and choose to commit their time, energy, and expertise to the service of this University.”

Wang earned an M.B.A. from Columbia University and her B.A. from UCLA. She held executive and sales positions at Citicorp and J. Walter Thompson Advertising before shifting gears to a career as an entrepreneur.

Wang has also established herself as a dedicated and thoughtful supporter of a wide array of housing, educational, and public health organizations. Through her company, Plastpro Inc., she has provided fiberglass doors for the construction of homes by Habitat for Humanity. The company has also donated technology laboratories to public high schools in Ohio and set up Plastpro Family Education Endowment Fund to support educational opportunities for families affected by addiction.

Through the Walter and Shirley Wang Foundation, Wang and her husband, Walter, funded the PBS documentary Becoming American: The Chinese Experience by Bill Moyers. They also sponsored the China AIDS documentary The Blood of Yingzhou District, which won the 2007 Academy Award for short documentary, and have given generously to anti-smoking and AIDS prevention initiatives in China.

At Columbia, Wang and her husband are actively engaged in enhancing the student experience. They are supporting the renovation of undergraduate lounges on the Morningside campus and construction of the new home for Columbia Business School on the Manhattanville campus. They have two children currently attending Columbia College, and Wang is a member of the College’s Parent Leadership Council.

Wang served as the Chairwoman of the UCLA Foundation board and, with her husband, funded scholarships for chemistry and biochemistry students, as well as chairs in Asian American Studies and Drug Discovery. They also endowed a chair at the Los Angeles Cedars Sinai Medical Center for Pediatric Surgery to advance research with a focus on helping low-income children.