2019 NYU Alumni Conference in Europe

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Friday, November 15, 2019

6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Welcome Reception

Saturday, November 16, 2019

12:00 PM - 1:00 PM Registration
1:00 PM - 1:30 PM  

Welcome and Opening Remarks

MC: John Carrion (CAS '06, WAG '07)

Speaker: Catherine Robson

1:30 PM - 2:30 PM  

Panel 1: Business and Entrepreneurship

Speakers: Serena Guen (GLS '13), Priyanka Lilaramani (STERN '06), Craig S. Pooler (GSAS '91, STERN '93), Franck Ruimy (STERN '02)

Moderator: Thor Bjorgolfsson (STERN '91)

2:30 PM - 3:30 PM

Panel 2: Arts and Culture

Speakers: Ilaria Conti (STEINHARDT '13), Valeria Napoleone (WSC '90, Parent TSOA), Jelena Panza (CAS '02)

Moderator: Andrew Uriarte (CAS '96)

3:30 PM - 4:00 PM   Break
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Panel 3: Law, Government, and Politics

Speakers: Benoît Charrière-Bournazel (LAW ’00), Ana Irene Delgado (LAW '06), Alexander Heylin (LAW '15), Jessica Radke (LAW '00)

5:00 PM - 5:45 PM

Keynote - Fireside Chat

Speakers: Andrea C. Bonomi (STERN '86), Rangarajan ("Raghu") Sundaram

6:00 PM - 7:00 PM Drinks Reception in Foyer
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Dinner

Sunday, November 17, 2019

10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Visit NYU London for a campus tour and light refreshments (Optional)

Speakers

Keynote - Fireside Chat

Andrea C. Bonomi (STERN '86)

Andrea C. Bonomi (STERN '86)

Andrea C. Bonomi is founder and chairman of Investindustrial, a leading European private equity group that provides industrial solutions and capital to mid-market companies in Europe. Its mission is to actively contribute to the development of the companies in which it invests, by creating growth opportunities and offering global solutions through an entrepreneurial pan-European vision. Investindustrial has a history of more than 28 years of successfully partnering with companies in Europe. Andrea received his BS from the NYU Stern School of Business in 1986 and is a member of NYU’s Board of Trustees.


Rangarajan ("Raghu") Sundaram

Rangarajan ("Raghu") Sundaram

Rangarajan ("Raghu") Sundaram is the Dean of New York University's Leonard N. Stern School of Business. He assumed the Deanship in January 2018, and was previously the Vice Dean for MBA Programs for two years (2016-17). Raghu, who joined Stern’s faculty in 1996, is the Edward I. Altman Professor of Credit and Debt Markets and Professor of Finance. Prior to coming to Stern, Raghu was at the University of Rochester (1988-96). Raghu received his BA in Economics from the University of Madras, India, in 1982; his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, in 1984; and his PhD in Economics from Cornell University in 1988.

Raghu's research in finance covers a range of areas including agency problems, executive compensation, corporate finance, derivatives pricing, and credit risk & credit derivatives. He has also published extensively in mathematical economics, decision theory, and game theory. His research has appeared in leading academic journals in finance and economic theory as well as several practitioner-oriented journals. Among other distinctions, he has served on a number of editorial boards, received grants from the National Science Foundation and other organizations, won the Jensen Award, and been a finalist for the Brattle Prize.

Raghu is the author of two books: A First Course in Optimization Theory (Cambridge University Press, 1996) and Derivatives: Principles and Practice (Mcgraw-Hill, 2010). In 2007, he became the inaugural recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award from the Stern School of Business.


Speakers

John Carrion (CAS'06, WAG '07)

John Carrion (CAS '06, WAG '07)

John D Carrion holds two degrees from NYU: a Bachelor of Arts from the College of Arts and Science (2006) and a Master of Public Administration from the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service (2007).

From 2004-2006, John was an RA at Hayden (now Lipton) Hall in New York City. For his work as an RA, he received the NYU President's Service Award in 2005 and the RA of the Year Award in 2006. He was also a Martin Luther King, Jr serving as class representative during his entire college career. Finally, he served as University Orientation Leader, Assistant Coordinator for Undergraduate Orientation, and as Class Marshal at the Baccalaureate Ceremony in the College of Arts and Science.

After NYU, John worked at St. John's University first as Residence Director, then as Assistant Director of the Ozanam Scholars Program, and finally as Associate Director of the Paris Campus. In 2010, he relocated to London and worked at two different UK charities - the Royal College of Psychiatrists and Marie Curie Cancer Care - as a project manager. In 2014, he returned to NYU in a newly created role as Assistant Director for Global Housing Administration where he oversees the housing administration for NYU's study away sites. Additionally in this role, he works with NYU's external partners to generate revenue for the university and contribute to NYU's affordability efforts.

John also serves as President of the NYU Alumni Club in London. Since 2014, John has revitalized the club to quadruple the number of events, involve NYU's global faculty, and host New Student Send-Offs in London and in Mumbai. Most recently, he created and chairs the committee for the inaugural NYU Alumni Conference in Europe.

Outside of NYU, in 2013 John was elected the youngest Chairman and Chief Executive of the London Gay Men's Chorus. Overseeing 10 staff and 80 volunteers, he led the Chorus to its 25th anniversary celebrations, to campaign for equal marriage at the Houses of Parliament, and facilitated a 100% growth in membership. In 2014, he was invited to a 10 Downing Street celebration to meet Prime Minister David Cameron after the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill was given Royal Ascent.


Benoît Charrière-Bournazel (LAW '00)

Benoît Charrière-Bournazel (LAW’00)

Benoît is a Paris-based partner at DS Avocats, a French law firm with international operations.

Admitted to the Bar in Paris and New York, Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales, Benoît has broad experience handling international business and corporate law matters. He advises clients on mergers and acquisitions, commercial transactions, cross border investments, corporate compliance matters as well as related litigation and arbitration.

Benoît served as legal counsel with the French Embassy in Washington, DC between 1998 and 1999. After graduating from NYU law school in 2000, he has been working as a lawyer in New York, London and Paris.

Benoît has long been active in the NYU and French-American communities. For many years he has been leading the French chapter of NYU Law school as well as the NYU Alumni club in France. He also chairs the Paris-New York international commission of the Paris Bar.


Ilaria Conti (STEINHARDT '13)

Ilaria Conti (STEINHARDT '13)

Ilaria Conti is a curator based between Paris and New York. Her work focuses on research-based practices engaging with decolonial epistemologies and with the relationship between institutional infrastructures, curatorship, and public engagement. She currently serves as Research Curator at the Centre Georges Pompidou for Cosmopolis, a multiyear platform devoted to research-based art. She is also Vice President of African Art Dialogues, a non-profit organization producing the African Art in Venice Forum, a platform for contemporary art from Africa and its diasporas free and open to the public.

Previously, she served as Exhibitions and Programs Director at CIMA New York, Assistant Curator of the 2016 Marrakech Biennale, and Samuel H. Kress Interpretive Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among other positions. Curated projects include Cosmopolis #2: Rethinking the Human (2019), Cosmopolis #1.5: Enlarged Intelligence (2018), Cosmopolis #1: Collective Intelligence, (2017); 6th Marrakech Biennale: Not New Now (2016); and Méxtasis (2016).

She holds a BA and an MA in Art History from the University of Rome La Sapienza and an MA in Visual Arts Administration from New York University (STEINHARDT '13).


Ana Irene Delgado (LLM '06)

Ana Irene Delgado (LAW '06)

Senator Ana Irene Delgado is the first female Senator of Province of Panama East constituency, 8-4, Chepo, Chiman, Balboa, Taboga. Her constituency is the largest in the Republic of Panama and the most diverse. It includes islands, rivers, mountains, rainforests, and several cities mainly dedicated to agroindustry, agriculture, and mining. It also represents many indigenous tribes and the biggest rivers in the country.

Ana is a member of the International Relations, Infrastructure, Panama Canal and Indigenous Committees within Panama Parliament. She was Panama Ambassador to London, UK from 2011-2014, and Panama Permanent Representative to the International Maritime Organization. From London, she covered the Republic of Ireland, Norway, and Iceland as the youngest Ambassador to the Court of St. James.

In this new Assembly, Ana has proposed six laws including one to protect foreign investment on land and strengthen protections over illegal invasions of private land and criminality. She also proposed an environmental law which included preservation of the rainforest that is part of her constituency.

Since 2006, Ana has been a partner at Solis, Endara, Delgado and Guevara Law Office. She restructured the International and Corporate Department of the Law Firm which is one of the oldest and more traditional offices of Panama.

Ana holds a law degree from Santa Maria University Panama and a BA in international affairs and economics from Florida State University. She holds an LLM from New York University School of Law.


Serena Guen (GLS '13)

Serena Guen (GLS '13)

In 2012, she began SUITCASE Magazine in her dorm room while studying at NYU. Thanks to her passion and resolve the publication has gone on to become one of the UK’s leading travel media platforms. SUITCASE Magazine is now available in more than 50 countries on newsstands and is available online in over 100 worldwide destinations.

Serena has been named the “Mark Zuckerberg of publishing” by Bloomberg and was featured in Forbes’ 30 Under 30 (2017). She has also won a Woman of the Future Award for media.

As a continuation of her goal to change the perspective on different cultures, Serena launched #CookForSyria in 2016, along with its sister initiative #BakeForSyria two years later. The campaigns raised money for and awareness of suffering children the war-torn region (via Unicef’s Next Generation London). Showcasing one of the most relatable aspects of Syrian culture – its cuisine – Serena created the tools to allow individuals, restaurants and companies to all make a difference. The two corresponding cookbooks are distributed globally, and #BakeForSyria became the number 1 bestselling cookbook on Amazon within two days of publication.


Alexander Heylin (LAW '15)

Alexander Heylin (LAW '15)

Alexander is a Barrister at No5 Barristers’ Chambers who is called to the English, Cayman and BVI Bar. He has broad commercial and insolvency litigation experience covering a wide range of disputes with an emphasis on cross border and complex high value cases.

His work includes an emphasis on civil fraud, white collar fraud, company, insolvency and regulatory matters, as well as complex commercial disputes generally. Alexander regularly advises shareholders in joint venture disputes and acts in contentious matters involving trusts and involuntary liquidation.

Alexander has not only practised at the English Bar but also as a partner in an offshore law firm and as a Principal in a New York Law firm. He undertook an LLM at NYU from 2014 – 2015 in Corporate Law.


Priyanka Lilaramani (STERN '06)

Priyanka Lilaramani (STERN '06)

Priyanka Lilaramani is the founder and CEO of Plinth, an ambitious, London-based FinTech company, building a transformative digital platform for private capital markets. A pioneer in digital finance, she has been recognized in Innovate UK’s FinTech Powerlist, Top 100 Asian Tech Stars in UK, Business Cloud’s Female Tech Trailblazers, and People Behind the Future Campaign.

Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Priyanka was an executive director with Goldman Sachs for over a decade. During her time at Goldman, she led several strategic efforts, in particular playing an integral role in the company’s expansion in Asian markets. Priyanka has lived and worked across New York, India, Beijing, Hong Kong, and London and has a keen understanding of many cultures and global business practices.

Priyanka holds an MBA from New York University's Leonard N. Stern School of Business and a masters in information systems from Carnegie Mellon University.


Valeria Napoleone (WSC '91, Parent TSOA)

Valeria Napoleone (WSC '90, Parent TSOA)

Valeria Napoleone is an art collector and patron to a select number of arts organizations. She is Head of the Development Committee at London based not for profit gallery Studio Voltaire; a Trustee of the Contemporary Art Society; sits on the Boards of the Institute of Fine Arts in NYC; is a member of NYU's President's Global Council and an Advisory Board member of the Association of Women in the Arts and is a Gallery Advisory Board member of A.I.R. in NYC.

Valeria has been an avid supporter of many UK based institutions such as Camden Arts Centre, Modern Art Oxford, South London Gallery, Nottingham Contemporary, ICA London, Milton Keynes Gallery, Glasgow International, Chisenhale Gallery.

Valeria has been a collector for 18 years, establishing a strong collection that focuses on female contemporary artists working internationally. Forming an exceptionally close bond with artists, Valeria has provided pivotal support to the careers of many of today’s most critically acclaimed artists including Nicole Wermers, Nicole Eisenman, Phyllida Barlow, Daria Martin, Andrea Buttner, Hague Yang, Lily van der Stokker, Lisa Yuskavage, Ghada Amer, Margarita Manzelli to name a few. In 2019 she received the prestigious Montblanc de la Culture Patronage Award.

In June 2015 Valeria launched 'Valeria Napoleone XX', a new umbrella platform for projects and initiatives that work towards increasing the representation of female artists in major public institutions. Named to highlight both collaboration and the female chromosome, the new platform launched with its first two new initiatives: Valeria Napoleone XX Contemporary Art Society is ongoing commitment to purchase and donate a significant work by a living female artist to a different UK museum each year. Valeria Napoleone XX SculptureCenter is a collaborative project that supports the production of a major artwork every 12 to 18 months from the programme at the New York-based non-profit arts institution dedicated to sculpture.

In October 2012, Valeria published her first book, an art-meets-cookbook, Valeria Napoleone's Catalogue of Exquisite Recipes, sales of which supported Downs Syndrome Education International.

Valeria received a BA from New York University's Journalism School and an MA in Art Gallery Administration at the Fashion Institute of Technology, NYC.


Jelena Panza (CAS '02)

Jelena Panza (CAS '02)

Jelena Panza is a senior fundraising and events professional with over 16 years’ experience in iconic cultural institutions in the UK, Europe and the US, with a career focus on income generation, development and delivery of creative projects, and high level relationship management.

During her multifaceted career in arts and culture, Jelena has been the Head of Events at the Royal Foundation, Head of Events at the Serpentine Galleries, consultant for the Royal British Legion, as well as a senior events and marketing professional at Sotheby’s, Somerset House and the Imperial War Museum. A snapshot of key projects Jelena has driven include: the Festival of Remembrance, Endeavour Fund Awards 2019, London Fashion Week, Serpentine Galleries’ exhibition openings, Sotheby’s Preferred events and the launch of the Somerset House ice rink in conjunction with Tiffany’s.

Originally from Vienna, Austria, Jelena is fluent in five European languages and holds a Bachelor’s degree from the College of Arts & Science at New York University (‘02) as well as a Master’s in European Studies from King’s College London (‘05). Outside of the arts, Jelena has a keen interest in human rights and mental health. In her free time, Jelena volunteers as a Crisis Text Line Counselor.


Craig S. Pooler (GSAS '91, STERN '93)

Craig S. Pooler (GSAS '91, STERN '93)

Craig is a Paris-based entrepreneur and investor with a career in international finance and private equity with JP Morgan, Société Générale, and Lafayette Partners in the United States and Europe.

Craig has advised, managed and invested in companies across technology, industry and real estate sectors, and has lectured on international finance at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, HEC and George Washington University.

Craig has been a board member of numerous companies and volunteer organizations, and long active in the French-American community on both sides of the Atlantic, serving as a board member of France-Amériques as well as an executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Paris and the European Executive Council.

Over the years, Craig has also served the NYU alumni community, notably as president of the NYU Stern alumni chapter in France, co-founder and director of the NYU Club of France and of the American University Clubs of France, and as a member of the Stern Global Alumni Council.

Craig holds an MBA in Finance and International Business, and an MA in Political Science with a specialization in French institutions, both from New York University.


Jessica Radke (LAW '00)

Jessica Radke (LAW '00)

Jessica Radke began her career as an Equal Justice Fellow, working with victims of domestic violence. She then moved to the UK and continued this work in London. After a few years in Jordan working on international arbitration Jessica returned to London and joined the Government Legal Service initially working on issues of public law, justice and national security. Jessica moved to the Competition Markets Authority in 2017, eventually taking up the post of Director of Litigation where she is responsible for litigation across the CMA’s tools including appeals in the specialist tribunal, director disqualification and consumer actions as well as the usual public law matters.


Catherine Robson

Catherine Robson

Catherine Robson is a Professor of English at NYU and has been the Director of NYU London since 2017; she had previously served as the site's Academic Director in 2016. Catherine came to NYU in 2010 after fifteen years at the University of California, Davis. She received her BA in English at Oxford University in 1983, and conducted her graduate studies in English at the University of California, Berkeley (MA, 1986; PhD, 1995).

Catherine’s work in nineteenth-century British cultural and literary studies has appeared in many scholarly journals; in 2003 she joined the Norton Anthology of English Literature as co-editor of The Victorian Age. To date, her publications have focused most prominently upon childhood, memory, and death; she enjoys thinking about the bonds between individual literary works and shifts within widespread cultural understandings of these topics. She is also interested in the roles played in this process by the pedagogical practices of a broad range of educational institutions. Among other distinctions, she has received fellowships from the Guggenheim and the Rockefeller Foundations; the National Endowment for the Humanities; the American Council of Learned Societies; and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.

Catherine is the author of two books, Men in Wonderland: The Lost Girlhood of the Victorian Gentleman (Princeton University Press, 2001) and Heart Beats: Everyday Life and the Memorized Poem (Princeton University Press, 2012), which received the North American Victorian Studies Association's Best Book of the Year award.


Franck Ruimy (STERN '02)

Franck Ruimy (STERN '02)

Mr. Ruimy is the Chief Executive Officer of the ÆRIUM Group. Mr. Ruimy also served as Director of several of the Company's subsidiaries since 1992 and led the 2003 launch of the pan-European investment platform. Leading the management of the business, he oversees all investment and structured financing strategies, and acts as a special property adviser on new customised funds.

With over 22 years in real estate investment, finance and asset management in North America and Europe, Mr. Ruimy’s previous posts include First Vice President of NYSE-listed real estate investment company W.P. Carey & Co. LLC, and Senior Vice President at REM Finance where he contributed to the rapid growth of the firm through the increase in foreign investments.

Mr. Ruimy received a BA in Economics and Finance from the ISG Business School and an MSc from the Université de Paris X before earning an MBA from New York University Stern School of Business.


Moderators

Thor Bjorgolfsson (STERN '91)

Thor Bjorgolfsson (STERN '91)

Self-styled “adventure capitalist” Thor Bjorgolfsson is an active investor in the emerging economies of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as Latin America, with a particular interest in telecommunication companies. He started his business by establishing Bravo Brewery in Russia, selling it to Heineken in 2002. During the following years he invested in telecoms, primarily in Eastern Europe and built up Actavis, a generic drug company. Thor is Chairman of Novator Partners LLP, a London-based alternative investment firm he founded in 2005, sits on several boards and maintains shareholdings in various companies. His autobiography, Billions to Bust—and Back: How I Made, Lost and Rebuilt a Fortune, And What I Learned on the Way was published in 2014. Thor holds a BS in finance from New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business and is a member of Stern’s Board of Overseers.


Andrew Uriarte (CAS '96)

Andrew Uriarte (CAS '96)

Andrew Uriarte is the Associate Dean for External Affairs at NYU Tisch School of the Arts and is responsible for institutional advancement efforts across the school. He is charged with developing and finding the necessary resources to maintain the school’s position as one of the world’s premier arts training institutions, building and strengthening relationships with cultural, business, and arts leaders, and leading stewardship efforts of the school’s dynamic community of over 35,000 alumni.

Andrew has been at NYU for over 23 years in various executive positions, including head of admissions for the College of Arts and Science (CAS) and as the director of recruitment and student affairs for Tisch, where he improved relationships with community-based organizations, arts schools, and not-for-profits working with young artists across the United States to increase, strengthen, and diversify the freshmen application pool. Uriarte is a proud graduate of CAS where he has since served as a CAS alumni mentor. He sits on the boards of NewFest, NYC's LGBTQ film organization, and Spaceworks, which co-creates work spaces to help keep artists in NYC.