

Tom Ross
Lead Independent Director | Bausch & Lomb Company
Thomas W. Ross currently serves as Lead Independent Director of Bausch & Lomb Company, a Canadian eye care company. Previously, he served as president of the Volcker Alliance, a New York City based organization founded by former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker. Ross is President Emeritus of the 17-campus University of North Carolina and of Davidson College. Prior to serving as President of UNC and of Davidson College, Ross was executive director of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, director of the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts, a Superior Court judge, chief of staff to a U. S. Congressman, a member of a Greensboro, NC law firm and an Assistant Professor of Public Law and Government at UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Government. Ross is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and served as the first Sanford Distinguished Fellow in Public Policy at the Duke University Sanford School for Public Policy. He has received numerous awards and accolades for his public service and professional achievements including the William H. Rehnquist Award for Judicial Excellence (2000), given annually to one state judge in the nation; Governing Magazine’s National Public Official of the Year Award (1994); and the Foundation for the Improvement of Justice Award (1995); the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce Distinguished Public Service Award; the Echo Foundation Award Against Indifference; and the William Friday Award for Public Service, among others. Born and raised in Greensboro, N.C., Ross holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Davidson College (1972) and graduated with honors from the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Law (1975). He is married to Susan Donaldson Ross with whom he shares two adult children and four grandchildren.