Eric Blair-Joannou graduated cum laude from Cornell University with an A.B. (B.A.) degree in the History and French Literature Departments, and received an M.B.A. and an M.S. in Urban Planning from Columbia's Graduate Schools of Business and Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, 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 and Planning Competition. He has worked at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s global headquarters in Asset Management, at the NYC Department of City Planning, and at the New York State Department of Transportation. 

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 Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, a founding Co-Chair of the Lincoln Center Corporate Fund's Junior Business Council, a member of the Cornell University Library Advisory Council, a Vice-Chairman of the Young New Yorkers for the Philharmonic Benefit Committee, and a member of the Steering Committee of the Young Fellows of the Morgan Library. 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, has contributed to the NYC-based think tank the Center for an Urban Future, hosted a bicycle-focused blog for the Danish Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and has formally studied 7 languages. 

Several years before the inception of the David Geffen/Avery Fisher Hall renovation project at the New York Philharmonic on the Lincoln Center campus, Eric worked with McKinsey & Co. on concertgoer engagement which directly resulted in concertgoer experiential changes at the Philharmonic, and served as key pre-planning material for the re-design process. 

Eric volunteers at his church, St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue (Episcopal), is a registered marriage officiant, and lives on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, in New York City.

Publications

--Drum (Teponaztli), Aztec, 15th-16th century, Met Museum
--"The Public's Penn Station," Columbia GSAPP URBAN Magazine
--"Smarter Small Businesses," Center for an Urban Future
--"New Tech City," Center for an Urban Future

Organizations Eric Supports

New York City

Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Bronx Museum of the Arts

The New York Botanical Garden
The New-York Historical Society
Columbia University

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

The New York Philharmonic

The Morgan Library

The Frick Collection

The House of the Redeemer

New York State

Cornell University

Historic Hudson Valley
Columbia County Historical Society
Columbia Land Conservancy

Claverack Free Library

Saint John's Episcopal Church

Philadelphia

Museum of the American Revolution

Miami

Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church