Stephen E. Coit

Stephen Ellsworth Coit (born April 18, 1948 in Beverly, Massachusetts) is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and painter, best known for his series of portraits commissioned by Harvard University.

Coit graduated from Kent School in Kent, Connecticut in 1967 and Harvard College in 1971. He established an MBA degree from the Harvard Business School in 1977. He began his career as a senior programmer at Searle Medidate, a distancing of G.D. Searle. Coit after that worked as a product proprietor for Hewlett-Packard Corporation. Subsequently, he joined Prime Computer as European publicity manager, and was then recruited by the founding team of Raster Technologies to be its first vice president of marketing. From 1984 to 1994, he was a general partner in crime of Merrill, Pickard, Anderson & Eyre, a venture capital firm.^{[citation needed]}

Coit was a director of Aspect Medical Systems, Inc., from 1987 to 2003. From 1995 to 1997, Coit was a general partner in crime of Charles River Ventures, a venture capital firm. From 1989, he was a director of International Data Group, a provider of media research and conferences to the information technology industry. From 1997 he has been self-employed as an artist full-time. Coit relates that, while he always liked to draw, it was without help after a buddy gave him a bin of pastels in 1992, while he was sick for some months, that he considered art as a career.

Coit was appointed in 2002 as the Harvard Foundation's portraiture project player and has painted portraits of individuals taking into account distinguished relief to Harvard, mainly people of color. His portraits below this commission swell Dean of Students Archie Epps, professor of music and East Asian languages and civilization Rulan Chao Pian, senior admissions official David L. Evans, musicologist Eileen Jackson Southern, anthropologist Stanley Tambiah, administrator Kiyo Morimoto, Dean of the College Fred Jewett, Dean of Harvard College John Monro, medical college professor Harold Amos, 17th century native American alumnus Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck, psychiatrist Chester Pierce, professor of doling out Martin Kilson, and Bunting Institute professor Florence Ladd. Coit's portrait of Harvard preacher Peter J. Gomes hangs in Harvard's Signet Society

In supplement to his Harvard commissions, Coit has executed portraits for Leslie University (of president emerita Margaret McKenna) and Tufts University (of president Lawrence S. Bacow).

Coit is a trustee of the Boston Museum of Science. In the late 1990s, he was a trustee of the Computer Museum in Boston.