Former Merck CEO Ken Frazier and KKR co-CEO Joseph Bae are joining Harvard University’s top board as the Ivy League school seeks to turn the page on a tumultuous period.

Harvard announced the changes on Sunday evening, saying Frazier will start Wednesday to fill the open seat on the Harvard Corporation, the powerful yet secretive board under fire its handling of the recent controversies. Bae is set to join the board on July 1, replacing Paul Finnegan when his term expires.

The two business leaders will be fresh faces on the Harvard Corporation as the board searches for a new leader to replace former President Claudine Gay, who stepped down under pressure last month amid scrutiny of her academic writings and her testimony before Congress about antisemitism.

“Our work is sure to benefit from their leadership qualities, their wide-ranging expertise and experience and their devotion to Harvard and higher education,” said Alan Garber, Harvard’s interim president, and Penny Pritzker, who leads the Corporation. “We know that they share a commitment to academic freedom, inclusion and the pursuit of excellence in Harvard’s mission of teaching and research.”

Harvard said that after a “deliberative process” led by members of the university’s top two boards, Frazier and Bae were elected on Sunday by the Corporation, which is led by Pritzker, a billionaire megadonor to the Democratic Party who has faced calls to step down following the resignation of Gay.

Frazier, who graduated Harvard Law School in 1978, served as CEO of Merck and sat on the board of ExxonMobil, is widely respected in the business community.

In 2017, Frazier quit former President Donald Trump’s manufacturing council in response to Trump’s initial failure to condemn white supremacists. In 2021, he was named CEO of the year by Chief Executive magazine. Today, he works for venture capital firm General Catalyst.

In a message to the Harvard community, Garber described Frazier as an “acclaimed leader, lawyer and advocate for opportunity” and noted that in 2020 he won the Anti-Defamation League’s Courage Against Hate Award.

Bae graduated from Harvard in 1994 and today he’s one of the most powerful private equity executives in the world. He became co-CEO of KKR in 2021 and has helped lead the firm’s push into Asia.