Eric Blair-Joannou

Eric Blair-Joannou graduated cum laude from Cornell University with an A.B. (B.A.) in History and French Literature, and received an M.B.A. and an M.S. in Urban Planning from Columbia's Graduate Schools of Business and Architecture, Planning, & Preservation. While at Columbia, he was part of the runner-up team in the inaugural U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) Innovation in Affordable Housing Student Design & Planning Competition, presented by then-U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan. He has worked at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s global headquarters in Asset Management, at the NYC Dept. of City Planning, and at the New York State Dept. of Transportation. While at the NYC DCP he was responsible for amending and implementing changes in standards for the Universal Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), which governs the land development process in the City of New York.

In addition to working for his fourth-generation family parts supply business, and in industrial real estate for his family office, Eric currently serves on the Cornell University Council; as a trustee of Historic Hudson Valley, the Columbia County Historical Society, and the Bronx Museum of the Arts; a volunteer curatorial researcher in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Michael C. Rockefeller Wing (f/k/a the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas); a member of the Cornell University Library and Botanic Gardens Advisory Councils; a Vice-Chairman of the Young New Yorkers for the Philharmonic; and a member of both the Morgan Library's Drawings & Prints Department visiting committee and Young Fellows Steering Committee. He is a former docent at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, trustee of the Cornell Rowing Association, Family & Children's Garden volunteer at the New York Botanical Garden, and founding Co-chair of the Lincoln Center Junior Business Council. Eric has contributed to the NYC-based think tank the Center for an Urban Future, hosted a bicycle-focused blog for the Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and has formally studied 7 languages. He is a Class of 2024 Fellow of the Economic Club of New York.