For some wealthy Chinese parents seeking access to elite American boarding schools, one of the best avenues seemed to be hiring Lillian Chen.
Chen and her husband, Henry Chang, promised they could personally lobby admissions directors and headmasters at selective American boarding schools to “ensure admission” for their customers’ children.
And for any parent who might doubt their claims of access, they had a tantalizing response: Chen was an insider herself, a member of the board of trustees at Suffield Academy in Connecticut. She could even introduce them to the head of school.
Then she disappeared from the school’s website.
As recently as last month, Chen was a Suffield board member in good standing, according to other trustees. Now she is no longer listed as a member of the 30-person board of trustees. In response to questions, Amy Randall, a Suffield spokesperson, said that Chen resigned from the board last month and that “it would not be appropriate for us to speak to her reasons for choosing to step down.”
Chen’s resignation is coming to light at a time when the Connecticut boarding school is trying to contain the fallout from a crisis. Its celebrated longtime headmaster, Charles Cahn III, was abruptly put on leave last month, with the school citing an IRS investigation as the cause. The news shocked Suffield parents and alumni because Cahn, who is one of the highest-paid boarding school heads in New England, with annual compensation exceeding $1 million in recent years, was regarded as a beloved and transformational leader, renowned for his fund-raising prowess.
In an email to the school community Thursday night, after this story was published online, Frederic B. Powers III, president of Suffield’s board of trustees, said that the board had retained outside counsel “to conduct a thorough investigation of matters involving school leadership and finances,” but that Suffield knew little beyond the fact of the IRS investigation.
“The reality is that, to our own deep frustration, we have had very little information to share,” Powers wrote. “We intend to communicate as openly as we can and provide updates as we learn more.”
Previously, the school had assured board members that the IRS investigation concerns only Cahn’s personal finances, not Suffield’s. The Globe cannot independently confirm the details of the investigation, and there is no evidence Chen is involved.
But Cahn did have ties to Chen’s business, and the arrangement raises questions about potential conflicts of interest and ethics, according to admissions consultants who spoke with the Globe this week.
Chen and Chang run a private school admissions consulting business known as XueMei Education. It is headquartered in Shanghai and claims to have a Boston-area office in Newton.
The company’s pitch has proven appealing to the high net worth Chinese families it solicits as customers. XueMei’s Chinese-language marketing materials promise that Chang and Chen will personally advocate for clients’ children by “communicat[ing] directly with admissions leaders” at selective American boarding schools.
For parents intending to donate to the school they want their child to attend, XueMei promises to communicate directly with the school’s headmaster or other “relevant personnel” to “improve admissions outcomes to the greatest extent possible.”
This service can be very expensive. In a 2016 stock market filing, the company reported contracts priced as high as $150,000. According to the filing, Chang owned nearly 80 percent of the company and Chen owned 20 percent. (XueMei, also known as CEDCA, began trading on a Chinese stock exchange in 2016 and voluntarily delisted itself in 2019.)
The company trumpeted its relationships with American boarding school leaders — and Suffield’s Cahn was a prime example.
At least half a dozen times, beginning in 2018, Cahn headlined events organized by XueMei in China, according to the company. During presentations at luxury hotels, including the Mandarin Oriental and the Four Seasons in Hong Kong, he spoke to parents and students about Suffield’s academic programs, campus renovations, and fund-raising. Before one event, XueMei said that Cahn would conduct one-on-one interviews with prospective applicants.
Some of this is standard fare in the cozy world of admissions counseling for selective private schools, many of which have become more reliant on international students amid demographic shifts in the United States. It is typical for consultants to call admissions officers on behalf of clients. It is an open secret that wealthy families donate to schools and expect their children to be admitted in return. And it is an established fact that Chinese consultants charge their clients six-figure sums, 10 times or more what their American counterparts bill.
But during the 2024 fiscal year, XueMei and Suffield’s relationship became unusually close.
That was the year that Chen joined the school’s 29-person board of trustees, according to Suffield’s publicly available tax filings. And soon thereafter, Chen’s status as a Suffield trustee became a key piece of her company’s pitch to prospective clients.
Chen “currently serves as a trustee of the leading American high school Suffield Academy ... [and] personally coaches students in the president’s package,” XueMei wrote in Chinese on its website in 2024.
XueMei Education did not respond to requests for comment, and neither did Cahn. In response to detailed questions, Suffield said only that Chen resigned her board position.
US-based admissions consultants who spoke with the Globe on the condition of anonymity to preserve their relationships with Suffield said that Chen’s dual role as a trustee and a consultant created the risk of a conflict of interest that would have to be carefully managed.
“Tricky,” one consultant said of the arrangement before asking to go off the record.
The Independent Educational Consultants Association, a trade group, issues guidelines about conflicts of interest and specifically flags being a board member as the sort of role that can be complicated.
Members of the group “are expected to avoid multiple relationships that could reasonably and foreseeably give rise to actual or perceived conflicts of interest,” the guidelines read. When a potential conflict exists, the consultant must disclose it in writing.
Suffield Academy itself was involved in the relationship with XueMei.
In addition to Cahn’s appearances for the company, at least one other Suffield staffer was listed as a contact for XueMei’s events. Flyers for meetings in Shanghai and Hong Kong in 2024 and 2025 directed parents to RSVP by emailing a staffer in Suffield’s admissions office at her school address.
XueMei has also touted its relationships with other American boarding schools. The company’s website has published photos of a person identified as a Milton Academy admissions officer presenting at a company event. A spokesperson for Milton Academy did not respond to requests for comment.
In the years since Chen became a Suffield board member, XueMei has boasted of expanding its footprint in the United States. Last year, it announced the grand opening of its Boston-area office in Newton. The office’s address, inside a Regus coworking office, is still listed on the company’s website.
On Monday, a receptionist at the coworking space said XueMei had been a tenant. But its account is now in default, and he hasn’t seen them in months.
“The space is still reserved for them,” the receptionist said. “It’s just empty.”
Mike Damiano can be reached at mike.damiano@globe.com.