Meet the Chair of Our Board
Committee of Seventy Chairman Ed Lovelidge
Committee of Seventy Chairman Ed Lovelidge is Managing Partner for the Philadelphia Metro Market of the professional services firm PwC (also known as PricewaterhouseCoopers). He’s a 28-year veteran of the Firm and has worked with some of the region’s most powerful global players, including DuPont, Crown Holdings, Rohm and Haas and Campbell Soup.
Ed brings an objective consultant’s eye to Seventy’s mission of fighting for better and more accountable government. He likes to challenge the traditional Philadelphia attitude that things are the way they are because “it’s just the way things get done, as opposed to the right way or a better way to approach things.”
“In our business, as a business advisor for the largest and most complex companies in the world,” he says, “we’re paid to be objective and ask questions on how to make things better and promote a culture of change. We frequently advise our clients that just because they have been doing something the same way for a long time, doesn’t mean it’s the right way - Or it might not make sense for today’s business or political world.”
Ed says he plans to continue and expand upon the work of past-Chairman Dan Fitzpatrick, who helped engage the business community in Seventy’s fight to make Philadelphia the world-class city it can be and to keep it as the vital economic heart of the region.
“The next two years are going to be crucial in Seventy’s work,” Ed says. “With a new governor and city elections in 2011, the Committee of Seventy is poised to cement its position as an independent voice for clean, accountable government in the region.”
Ed is an archetypal small-town success story. He is the son of a mailman and a legal assistant from rural Lancaster. In college, he married his high school sweetheart, Deb. Three decades later, they’re still together and they have raised two successful daughters, Emily (who works for the United Way) and Rachel (who is studying theater and music at Gettysburg College).
Along the way, Ed earned his degree in accounting from Elizabethtown College and his MBA in finance from Wharton. He and his family lived for two years in Paris. There he learned the virtue of patience and understanding in dealing with people who come out of different cultures – a lesson he hopes to apply as Seventy’s chairman.
“It’s a fascinating thing to learn,” he said, “that you don’t really have to speak the same language to be able to communicate.”
Ed is an avid golfer and an enthusiastic collector of wines. He brings to both hobbies an appreciation for finding the best value for the money, rather than simply pursuing the most expensive or fashionable things.
“Yes, I like nice wines, but I also like to find great wines at great prices,” he said. “To me that’s as much of a challenge about having my cellar as anything else.”
Ed joined the Committee of Seventy’s Board of Directors in 2009, although he has long known of Seventy’s work through friends and colleagues, including Dan Fitzpatrick and retired PwC partner Tony Conti, a longtime Seventy Board member and Ed’s predecessor as PwC's Managing Partner. Ed even volunteered for Seventy’s nationally-known Election Day program in the late ‘80s.
Now as chairman of the Board, he hopes to strengthen the voice of business in the fight for reform and to cement Philadelphia’s position as a great place to work and live.