Joan Toland Bok

Joan Toland Bok (née Toland) is an energy executive and lawyer who served as the chairwoman of New England Electric System between 1984 and 1998. She was the first woman to lead a large American energy company. She also served as director of the Avery Dennison Corporation.

Bok served on numerous public and nonprofit boards, serving as the president of the Harvard Board of Overseers and as a trustee of the Boston Athenaeum, National Osteoporosis Foundation, Vermont Historical Society, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and the Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research. In 1993, she was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In the 1960s, Bok and her husband John F. Bok (deceased, 2014) heavily involved themselves in neighborhood-level civic matters in Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston, where they resided.