New Board Members Named at Hershey, Millennium, Ventas, and Harmonic

Chocolate king The Hershey Company announced this week that David J. West has been named president, CEO, and director of the company. Richard H. Lenny, who will be retiring as the company’s chairman, president and CEO, will remain in his seat as Chairman of the Board, and as a director until the end of the year, when he will leave the company. West’s roles as president and director are effective immediately.

The company’s board also appointed Robert H. Campbell, a board member and chairman of the Compensation and Executive Organization Committee, a non-executive Board Chairman as of January 1.

President and COO Jeffrey Mallett was elected to the board of directors of Synacor, an internet tool and portals builder, the company announced Wednesday.

Currently serving as a director and chairman of the board of SNOCAP Inc., a provider of digital music licensing and copyright management services, Mallett since 2002 has been a principal owner and executive committee member of Major League Baseball’s San Francisco Giants club. He also held various positions at Yahoo! from the mid-1990s until 2002, including the role of president and COO.

Leading healthcare and real estate investment trust Ventas, Inc. announced that its board has elected Ronald G. Geary to Chairman of the company’s Audit and Compliance Committee, of which he is already a member. The board also appointed Douglas Crocker II to fill a vacancy on the committee caused by the recent death of its former chairman, Christopher T. Hannon.

Ventas’s audit committee will now comprise Geary and members Crocker and Sheli Z. Rosenberg. All three are independent under the New York Stock Exchange and Securities and Exchange Commission rules. The company is currently looking for a member to fill its vacancy on the board.

California-based Harmonic, Inc., a leading provider of high performance video solutions, announced Wednesday that it has elected Patrick Gallagher to its board of directors. Gallagher, a highly experienced telecommunications executive with significant international expertise, currently serves on the board of directors at Gentronics NV, a publicly traded company in the Netherlands. He is also the vice chairman of the board at Golden Telecom, a leading facilities based provider of integrated telecommunications and internet servies.

Gallagher has held senior management positions during his 17-years at British Telecom, including group director of strategy and development, president of BT Europe and a member of the BT executive committee, as well as vice chairman and CEO at FLAG Telecom, a leading provider of international network transport and data services.

Jeffrey M. Leiden, a managing direct or at life sciences venture capital firm Clarus Ventures, has been elected to the board of directors at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, a Massachusetts-based biopharmaceutical company.