Overseer Candidate Salvo Arena Says Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Are ‘Essential Pillars’ of Harvard

Board of Overseers candidate Salvo Arena said Harvard’s diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives are “essential pillars” of the University and warned that weakening them would undermine Harvard’s standing as a leading global institution.

Arena, a Sicilian-born mergers and acquisitions lawyer who graduated from Harvard Law School in 2000, is one of nine recently endorsed candidates for Harvard’s second-highest governing body. If elected, he will join the 30-member Board of Overseers in July.

Now a partner at Chiomenti, an Italy-based law firm, Arena framed diversity, equity, and inclusion as central, not optional, to Harvard’s mission.

“Harvard is — and has to continue being — leading institutional education around the world, and the world looks at Harvard for maintaining those principles,” he said. “The path that is open for everyone is essential.”

Friends and colleagues pointed not only to Arena’s professional accomplishments, but also to his personal values and record of service. Antonio Baena, a former classmate, cited Arena’s humanitarian efforts during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“I must not forget his human values and principles,” Baena wrote in a statement. “A clear example of this is his service to the Ukrainian people during the war, travelling to the country and helping them deliver international food and assistance on the ground.”

Arena has remained deeply involved in the Law School’s alumni body since graduating more than two decades ago. He has served as president of the Harvard Law School Association of New York, held leadership roles in international alumni organizations, and spent nine years as elected director of the Harvard Alumni Association. He currently serves on the Harvard Law School Association’s Senior Advisory Council.

He said his sustained involvement in alumni affairs — and his decision to run for Overseer — steeps from the formative role Harvard played in his life.

“Harvard is not an institution for me. It’s really family, it’s home,” Arena said. “Giving back, for me, has been essential in all these 20 years.”

Arena also said Harvard could have handled recent governance challenges differently, pointing to the University’s response to former President Claudine Gay’s historically brief tenure and its response to pro-Palestine protests following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

“The response of Harvard, in all the way in which all that process was managed, probably could have been managed in a different way,” he said. “I got the feeling that there were especially international people just were a little bit questioning the process per se.”

At the same time, he expressed confidence in Harvard’s more recent actions.

“If I look at the past three months with respect to the relationship — and all the things that are happening — with the government, I don’t think Harvard has made mistakes based on what I know,” he said.

Arena also said protecting international students must remain a University priority. He argued that Harvard’s governance bodies do not fully reflect the institution’s global network. (Only one of the 30 currently serving Overseers are from outside the United States).

“Harvard has — in its DNA has — an international component, international alums, and international students. They make Harvard a better place, a more diverse place. They need to be there,” he said.

Arena’s emphasis on community dates back to his time as a student. As a Law School student, he said he quickly connected with classmates by cooking for them.

“I said, ‘Okay, guys, I cook for you once a week,’” Arena recalled. “I think my famous pasta with four cheeses and the chicken was amazing. So, you know, I got a lot of friends. I’ve been in touch with all of them.”

Baena remembered Arena as a natural connector.

“Since his early days at HLS, Salvo was pushing his classmates to bond and mingle together,” Baena wrote. “He was instrumental to create a community that has lasted decades. Over the years, he has nurtured the friendship and sense of belonging in our class.”

That same energy has continued into Arena’s alumni leadership, according to HLSA President Yvonne E. Campos, who described him as “an extrovert’s extrovert.”

“He’s not a wallflower,” Campos said.

Campos, speaking from her personal experience working with Arena, recalled a May 2018 alumni trip to Rome that Arena helped organize, which included private access to the Colosseum, the Vatican Museums, and the Sistine Chapel.

“I just couldn’t have been more gratified with that trip,” Campos said. “It was just spectacular.”

—Staff writer Hugo C. Chiasson can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at hcc.35. Follow him on X @HugoChiassonn.