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Past Speakers
2023 Past Speakers
Pooja '09 and Gal '09 Danay
Co-Founders of Woops!
Monday, December 4, 2023
Pooja Chandnani Danay graduated from Pace University with a double major in marketing and finance. She worked in a major marketing firm right out of college until she decided that the corporate world was not a good fit. Pooja went on to pursue one of her biggest passions by attending an acting program in India for four months. Upon her return to the United States, Pooja became part of the founding team that established Woops! She has had multiple roles in the company including being Director of Events, operating some of the company's most successful locations in Manhattan, and customizing special events for thousands of clients, including some of the largest companies in the world. Woops! has grown to be the largest retailer of French macarons in the United States. In addition, Pooja has excelled as an actor and has been featured on major nationwide commercials for Google, Facebook, Care.com, Garden of Life, and more.
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Gal Danay is a Certified Public Accountant who graduated from Pace University with a degree in accounting. Gal started his career as a managing partner and franchisee of Aroma Espresso Bar in Manhattan. He grew his franchise to three locations with over $7 million in annual sales, and managed hundreds of employees. Gal was one of the founding members of Woops! He has held many important roles in the company throughout its history, including COO of bakery operations, COO of franchise operations, and currently CFO and Co-CEO of Woops!. Gal was in charge of opening franchise locations when the company grew from five corporate stores to 50 locations nationwide. Woops! is now the largest retailer of French macarons in the United States. Gal is a franchise expert and has now been in the franchising world his entire career which spans 15 years.
Jay Levy '82
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CPA, Managing Partner - CohnReznick
Thursday, November 30, 2023
Jay Levy serves as the Managing Partner in CohnReznick's New York office. In addition to his local responsibilities, he is a member of the firm's Financial Services Industry practice. As an audit partner with more than 35 years of audit, tax, and business consulting experience, Jay works with an array of financial services clients including investment management companies, broker-dealers, and family offices. He specializes in working with investment partnerships consisting of hedge funds, private equity funds, and fund of funds, including those with assets under management from start-up to multi-billion-dollar platforms.
Jay's services to clients include traditional audit and tax services as well as consulting on operational, transactional, and tax issues in the financial services industry. He is responsible for auditing year-end financial statements, assessing internal control procedures, and consulting on organizational and tax structures for his clients. He also alerts clients about regulatory changes affecting the financial services industry.
Jay has provided training to investment managers and to the firm's professionals on issues related to investment partnership structuring, accounting, auditing, and financial reporting. He has also published articles on investment partnership topics.
Mark Stevens
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Lifelong Entrepreneur/Founder
Thursday, November 9, 2023
Mark Stevens founded his first business at 10—a Christmas tree store—then moved on to a media company at age 20.
His entrepreneurial forays turned to financial services and eventually one of the world's best known marketing firms, MSCO.
He has written best-selling books on business and marketing and is lauded as an expert in business growth. After he sold MSCO, he was asked to coach others and views it as a privilege.
Laura Plotner '91
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Treasurer & Partner - Chastang & Partners
Wednesday, October 18, 2023
Laura Plotner, CPA, has more than 25 years of experience in public and private accounting, providing tax compliance and consulting services on a full range of tax issues. Her experience includes working with multi-state issues, international tax services, and public/SEC clients. She specializes in organizational and transactional planning related to state, local, and international matters.
Laura's extensive international expertise includes both inbound and outbound transactions and structural planning. She has presented international, state, and local tax planning strategies for manufacturers to various groups, and she specializes in IC-DISC opportunities.
Dan Feeney '86
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Executive Vice President and Manager - North Star Leasing
Tuesday, October 3, 2023
Dan Feeney has lifetime experiences as an entrepreneur with leadership roles in accounting, finance, management, operations, as well as CEO, CFO positions.
Dan is currently serving as Executive Vice President, Manager at North Star Leasing Company, now a Division of Peoples Bank. Under Dan's leadership for 17 years, NSL grew as a micro-ticket leasing company from $12M in assets to now just under $200M. (Dan sold the company to a private equity firm in January 2018 and was asked to stay on and grow the business. NSL was sold again to its current owner, People's Bank of Marietta, OH.)
Dan has experience of running a finance company during the great recession. During the first 12 years of running NSL, the company did not have an HR, IT, or Legal department yet delivered a CAGR of over 22% to the investors which places it in the top 1/10 of 1% of money managers.
Dan Feeney started his career as an accountant with PwC and was subsequently recruited to join Green Mountain Coffee Roasters ("GMCR", now Keurig) as the company's first CFO in 1991.
After GMCR, Dan started Coffee Enterprises in Burlington, VT which at time created private label coffee programs for large companies, hedged coffee purchases for clients and distributed coffee extract to Ben & Jerry's for use in Heath Bar Crunch, which at the time was the number one selling flavor.
Post Coffee Enterprises, Dan, and a colleague purchased Partner's Coffee in Atlanta, GA where they roasted and packaged coffee for large retailers like Shaw's, Giant Eagle, Sutton Gourmet, and Harris Teeter Supermarkets to name but a few.Dan attended Pace University's Pleasantville campus, graduating with a BBA in Accounting in 1986. During his time at Pace, Dan was a four-year starter on the varsity soccer team, attending on a partial athletic scholarship. Dan also worked as a Resident Assistant during his junior and senior years and was employed at Foley's Bar and Grill in Pleasantville.Dan currently lives in Burlington, VT with his wife Amy, also a Pace alumna whom he met the first weekend of freshman year. Their three daughters all currently reside in Brooklyn, NY.
Claude Wade '96
EVP, Chief Digital Officer, and Global Head of Business Operations & IT - AIG
Monday, September 18, 2023
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Claude E. Wade is Executive Vice President, Head of Global Business Operations & IT and Chief Digital Officer of AIG. In this role, he focuses on improving and simplifying the user experience for AIG colleagues, clients, distribution partners, and other stakeholders through a standardized data infrastructure and digital capabilities.
Mr. Wade, who has over 30 years of operational strategy and innovation experience, primarily with Fortune 100 companies, joined AIG from BlackRock where he most recently served as Global Head of Client Experience and Head of the Atlanta Innovation Hub. As Global Head of Client Experience, he was responsible for reshaping the global distribution ecosystem and improving the digital experience for BlackRock clients, revenue retention and efficiency improvements. As the Atlanta Innovation Hub Leader and Office Head, Mr. Wade had overall executive responsibility for creating BlackRock's newest office and digital innovation center.
He previously spent approximately eight years with Marsh LLC and Guy Carpenter & Company, both operating subsidiaries of Marsh McLennan, in multiple execution leadership roles. Mr. Wade is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and Certified Agile Scrum Master. He received his MBA from New York University, Stern School of Business and his BBA in finance from Pace University.
Chris O'Leary '81
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Senior Advisor - Twin Ridge Capital
Monday, May 1, 2023
Chris O'Leary is a 1981 graduate of Pace University Pleasantville (BBA Marketing). After a 35-year career in marketing and general management at General Mills and PepsiCo, and previous roles as Interim CEO of Tupperware Brands and Senior Advisor at KKR & Co. Chris is now in private equity as a Senior Advisor at Twin Ridge Capital.
Chris was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for General Mills International from 2006-2016. He was responsible for all businesses outside the U.S., totaling more than $6 billion in sales across over 100 countries and more than 20,000 employees. From 2001-2006 Chris was President of the Meals Division, responsible for brands such as Green Giant, Progresso, and Old El Paso. Chris was President of the Betty Crocker Division from 1999-2001 and started at General Mills in 1997 as Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Mergers and Acquisitions.
Prior to General Mills, Chris spent 17 years at PepsiCo. His last role was CEO of Frito-Lay Canada in 1996/97. He was also Area Vice President Frito Lay Midwest (1994-1996), Vice President Marketing for Frito Lay U.K. (1991-1994), Vice President of Marketing Frito Lay U.S. (1990), and had numerous other Marketing roles at Frito Lay and Pepsi-Cola from 1981-1989). Chris started his PepsiCo career as a Marketing Intern in 1980. He applied for and landed an internship at Pepsi-Cola offered only to Pace University students, working 30+ hours a week for his last three semesters at Pace.
Chris has an MBA from New York University (1987). He is on the Board of both Telephone and Data Systems Inc. and CARE USA. Chris was Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum Consumer Industry Steering Group and regularly attended the Annual Meeting in Davos.
Julian Alston '18
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Chief of Staff - Milo
Tuesday, March 7, 2023
Julian Alston is a Spring 2018 Lubin School of Business graduate where he majored in Management with a focus in Entrepreneurship. During his tenure at Pace, he was heavily involved in on campus activities such as Summer Orientation, the Black Student Union, and Student Government Council. His senior year, he served as Student Government President. Post graduation, Julian has immersed himself completely into the tech space. He's worked for tech companies and startups such as: Tesla, CB Insights, Better.com, Coinbase and currently he is Chief of Staff to the CEO at a Miami based early stage/venture backed startup named Milo - they're a fintech company who have successfully launched the world's first crypto mortgage. In addition, Julian serves as the founder and co-chair of the Pace University Black Alumni Group whose mission is to provide mentorship, support and relationship equity to black students and staff.
Kim Van Orman '95
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SVP and Chief People Officer - USI
Wednesday, April 19, 2023
Kim Van Orman is USI's SVP and Chief People Officer and a member of the Board of Directors. She and a small team of senior leaders have taken USI from a $400 million revenue insurance brokerage firm growing largely through acquisition to a $2.6 billion revenue sales and consulting business growing organically.
USI is a private equity-owned company of 10,000 employees, with 200+ offices around the country. Kim leads USI's global talent strategy and execution, including creating internal centers of excellence focused on talent acquisition, strategic communications, mergers and acquisitions, DEI, as well as employee recognition and engagement.
Previously, Kim worked for The Reader's Digest Association and Philip Morris International, where she held senior Human Resources roles involved in global compensation, employee culture, talent development and HR/turnaround strategy initiatives.
Kim graduated with an MBA from Pace University and a BA from Loyola University in Maryland and lives with her family in Katonah, NY.
Carol Watson '82
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Chief Inclusion Officer - BCW
Friday, March 24, 2023
Carol Watson, BCW's global Chief Inclusion Officer, is committed to embedding Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accountability (IDEA) holistically throughout the agency. Carol brings a deep understanding of both the business approach to embedding inclusion and the metrics driven workplace systems and practices of building and nurturing a truly inclusive, global leadership organization. She believes in the relentless progress of inclusive organizational transformation in her work internally across global regions and as an external marketer, thought leader and I&D practitioner. Client work includes C-suite advising, crisis, social issues, strategy, embedding inclusion in marketing communications, DE&E audits/benchmarking, bias-interrupter design workshops. The breadth of industries has included global F500 corporations, brands, higher education, retail, pharmaceutical, professional services and more.
Gloria Greco '94
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Retired Compliance and Operational Risk Executive
Tuesday, February 28, 2023
Until her recent retirement, Gloria Greco was a Compliance and Operational Risk Executive at Bank of America Corporation, responsible for overseeing compliance and operational risk for the wealth management businesses, including Bank of America Private Bank, Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, Merrill Edge, Investment Solutions and Retirement & Personal Wealth Solutions.
Gloria began her career with Merrill Lynch and was with the company for more than 40 years, holding positions within legal, accounting, finance, purchasing, and technology organizations. Her expertise and experience includes securities, consumer banking and fiduciary regulations, intellectual property rights and contract law, compliance with anti-bribery, campaign finance, economic sanctions and anti-money laundering laws, ethical decision making, and managing conflicts of interest. Gloria also held various enterprise and line of business compliance and legal executive leadership roles, where she developed strategy, oversaw group functional activities, engaged with key regulatory authorities, and regularly interacted with executive management, board members and board committees.
Gloria served in various internal diversity, equity and inclusion executive leadership roles, and also represented the company on various industry committees and panels, including the Financial Industry Regulatory (FINRA) Large Firm Advisory Committee, which provides insight to FINRA regarding existing and proposed rules, emerging industry trends, and related matters. She was a member of the Compliance and Legal Division of the Securities and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), and continues as a member of the New York State Bar Association and serves on the Alumni Board of Brooklyn Law School.
Gloria graduated from Pace University's Lubin School of Business, where she earned a BBA in Management, and from Brooklyn Law School, where she earned here JD. She has also held various securities industry licenses, and formal regulatory designations, including serving as Chief Compliance Officer for Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated and other related entities.
Sandra Gurijala '09
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Principal - EY
Thursday, February 2, 2023
Sandra Gurijala is a Principal in EY's National Tax Transaction Economics Group, which is based in New Nork City. With over 20 years of experience, she is responsible for economic analyses for tax purposes including debt vs. equity characterization and complex financial instrument pricing. She is actively involved in assisting clients with IRS challenges around debt vs. equity treatment, credit rating issues and complex financial instrument valuation issues. She has prepared comprehensive documentation submitted in relation to IRS Appeals Conferences as well as for state audit purposes and has presented and participated in numerous meetings with taxing authorities. Sandra's clients include multi-national corporations in a variety of industries including the following: life sciences, specialty pharmaceuticals, consumer products, retail, oil and gas, specialty chemicals, utilities, manufacturing, medical devices, packaging, insurance, metals and mining, financial services, and technology, media, and telecommunications.