Class of 2016 Biographies - Lauder Institute

Transcription

Class of 2016 Biographies
The Joseph H. Lauder Institute of
Management & International Studies
Equipping yourself with an MBA from the Wharton School
or a JD from the Law School, combined with an MA in
International Studies from the University of Pennsylvania’s
School of Arts & Sciences, is smart business.
As a pioneer in integrating management education with
international studies and language and cross-cultural
proficiencies, the Lauder Institute offers students:
• Joint MBA/MA and JD/MA
• Regional expertise through the customized language
and culture programs
• The study of global business, inter-cultural management,
and the impact of geo-politics on business practices in the
new global program
• Two-month, in-country immersion programs
• Supportive global community of students, alumni, faculty,
and corporate leaders
• Dedicated Lauder faculty
During the course of the 24-month program, students learn
about business, culture, language, history, politics, and art.
The Lauder Institute Class of 2016
ARABIC
Mohamed Abdelgany
David Mikhail
CHINESE
Shuyang Bai
George Bradt
Charley Chen
Robert Fried
John Sze-Ming Khor
Xi Lian
JB Marek
Michael Pareles
Drew Soloski
Kathleen Sun
William Wachter
Shani Scharfstein Wangenheim
Josh Zhou
FRENCH
Katharine Irene Bigott
Eduardo Escribano Martín
Katherine Fackler
Steven Feis
Erica Hall
Rizwan Naveed
Tim Racine
Tania Steyn
Hannah Yudkin
GERMAN
Chakra Banerjee
Eva Nixon
Christopher Mott Owen
GLOBAL
João Baena Soares
George Birman
Daniel Bouskela
Kaline Brückner Saab
Maria Lohner
Lester Loi
Harshad Maral
Zachary Queen
Balraj Virdi
Xiaoxi Zhang
HINDI
Sabina Khanna
Vijay Kukreja
Akshay Mandan
JAPANESE
Alexandre Attia
PORTUGUESE
Marcelo Cattani
Diego Hernandez Diaz
Kevin Ollokot Keefe
David Brian Sardi
RUSSIAN
Mark Andrew Adomanis
Ashley Archibald
Robert Bond
Kseniya Demchenko
Liya Eijvertinya
Alan Gordin
Benjamin Johnson*
Ivan Koutsarov
Andrew Mitchell
SPANISH
Pjeter Dushku
Robert David Hamill
Aleksas Juskys
Tony Keffler*
Sarah Millar
Andres Panza
Caitlin Ryan
Bianca Farhat Cardoso Ziccarelli
*JD/MA Program
MOHAMED ABDELGANY
The son of Egyptian parents, Mohamed was raised in Orange County, California. Growing up
in post-9/11 America, he learned to embrace his Arab-American heritage and work toward
building cross-cultural understanding in his community. He also nurtured a deep connection
with the Arab world, frequently visiting family there during summer vacations.
Mohamed earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering from the
University of California, Irvine (UCI). While there, he participated in a number of campus
causes, including increasing wages for university workers and allocating more resources
to underrepresented minorities on campus. As president of the Muslim Student Union, he
regularly planned humanitarian relief fundraising efforts, as well as educational events
about human-rights issues around the world. This culminated in the group receiving the UCI
Social Justice Award.
During this time, Mohamed also worked at Broadcom Corporation, a multibillion-dollar
semiconductor company, in the Mobile and Wireless Group. There he facilitated stronger
collaboration between the group’s hardware and software teams. He later completed another
internship with Beckman Coulter, a large biomedical device company, where he applied his
electrical-engineering skills in a cross–industry environment and helped the company meet
environmental and safety regulations for its hardware products in Europe, China, and North
America.
During his master’s studies, Mohamed spent eight months in Egypt completing extensive
Arabic language study and an internship with the Cairo branch of the VC-backed start-up
Newport Media. There he witnessed the Egyptian revolution firsthand, which inspired his
long-term commitment to improving the country’s economic well-being.
After graduation, Mohamed joined Newport Media’s California headquarters as a
radio-frequency design engineer, designing solutions for WiFi, cellular, and mobile TV
applications. In order to design innovative and cost-effective semiconductor products, he
regularly collaborated on projects with engineers from the company’s branches in Egypt
and China. Among his achievements, he contributed to the design of a competitive and
customizable WiFi chip that continues to generate millions in sales per quarter.
In his free time, Mohamed enjoys playing basketball, snowboarding, community-organizing,
and discussing domestic and international politics. At Wharton/Lauder, he hopes to refine his
Arabic language skills; to develop an intimate social, political, and economic understanding
of the MENA region; and to discover opportunities to help promote technology and innovation
in the Arab world.
Lauder Focus: Middle East and Arabic
MARK ANDREW ADOMANIS
Mark was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and attended high school in the
nearby suburbs. Growing up in close proximity to so many historic sights left a lasting
impression on him and helped develop his keen sense of intellectual curiosity about the
world.
After high school, Mark attended Harvard University, graduating in 2007 with a degree
in government. At Harvard, he worked on the student newspaper as a featured columnist
and a member of the editorial board. He was also involved in intercollegiate athletics as a
coxswain for the men’s varsity lightweight rowing team. He won one national championship
and placed second in two other championships (in one case losing to Cornell by less than a
hundredth of a second).
After graduation, Mark attended the University of Oxford, where he spent two years
completing a master’s degree in Russian and East European studies. During this time, he
researched and wrote a thesis about health-care reform in Russia from the late 1980s through
the early years of Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency.
After Oxford, Mark moved to Washington, D.C., where he worked for four years providing
management and strategy consulting services to federal agencies—first for Phase One
Consulting Group and then for Booz Allen Hamilton. At both firms, he participated in a broad
range of projects, and his work ranged from developing high-level transformation strategies
to conducting detailed financial and budgetary analysis. His time in Washington enabled him
to gain a thorough understanding of how the government operates and how to perform at a
high level in politically sensitive environments.
Among his personal interests, Mark writes extensively about Russian politics and economics.
He is a regular contributor to Forbes’ website and, in this capacity, has attended conferences
in Eastern Europe and Russia and appeared on TV and radio stations such as Al Jazeera and
the BBC. He has also written extensively about Russian politics and economics for a number
of Russian and American outlets, including Foreign Affairs, Survival, Quartz, The National
Interest, and Slon.ru.
After Wharton/Lauder, Mark hopes to secure a position that enables him to combine his
consulting skillset with his passion for Russia. In his spare time, he enjoys travelling,
reading, and watching the Philadelphia Eagles.
Lauder Focus: Europe and Russian
ASHLEY ARCHIBALD
Ashley was born in Goiânia, in the Brazilian state of Goiás, to an American father and a
Brazilian mother. At a young age, he was already interested in languages and travel. In 2002,
he moved to the U.S. and attended high school in Parma, Ohio. He returned to Brazil to study
at FEARP, a business school at the University of São Paulo. There, with several colleagues
and professors, he established both an AIESEC chapter, to promote internships abroad, and
an Academic International Office.
Ashley travelled to Saint Petersburg, Russia, for a five-month AIESEC internship, teaching
English at Gymnasium 278. He also studied Russian language and culture. Upon his return to
FEARP, he worked as general manager for an enzyme start-up, Verdartis, where he prepared
proposals for government grants, After a year, the company was granted over R$4 million
(about US$2 million) in funding. Ashley also modified Verdartis’ research focus following a
thorough financial and market forecast.
Ashley later co-founded MyTrainee.com, a web portal about trainee programs in Brazil.
After less than a year, he and his partner sold the site for a solid profit. He then established
his own consulting firm, ACG Business Partners. He and his partner helped start-ups develop
their business ideas and business plans; guided patent owners in finding manufacturers for
their innovations; and guided investors in the evaluating start-ups in the technology, web,
and mobile-services industries. They also guided foreign companies, referred primarily by
the U.S., UK, and Russian consulates in São Paulo, to understand the Brazilian market.
Outside work, in 2006 Ashley volunteered at Crescer Crédito Solidário, a microcredit NGO,
and in 2011 he taught soft skills to underprivileged teenagers at Corassol, a local NGO in
Ribeirão Preto. He is a member of the American Society of São Paulo, where he has been
a volunteer at Field Day and Angel Party, both of which provide fun activities and gifts for
underprivileged children. Currently, he is responsible for the American Society’s website.
He is also a member of INCT-INAMI, a Brazilian national research group on biomedical
technologies, which is part of the Brazilian Ministry of Science Technology and Innovation
and has a partnership with Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.
Ashley looks forward to his Wharton/Lauder experience helping him to improve his Russian
language skills with a focus on business.
In his spare time he enjoys attending rock concerts, flying radio-controlled airplanes, skiing,
and travelling.
ALEXANDRE ATTIA
Alex was born in Paris and spent most of his childhood in France. His professional career
started not in his home country, but in Japan, when he completed his first internship, helping
small- and medium-sized enterprises to develop their businesses abroad. This experience
played an instrumental role in Alex’s passion for languages and international management.
He now speaks fluent English, French, and Japanese, and is currently working toward fluency
in Mandarin Chinese.
When he was about to complete his undergraduate business studies, Alex was eager to go
abroad but decided to remain in Europe to build a strong management skillset that he could
later leverage for maximum impact. He spent nine months at General Electric’s regional
headquarters in Europe, where he served as a liaison between headquarters and the local
subsidiaries in each country. Working in such a subsidiary in Japan showed him the other
side of operations--how headquarters functions and, in particular, interacts with local
subsidiaries. It also helped Alex understand the inner workings of a large corporation, which
proved very useful as he moved into management consulting.
Alex joined Bain & Company as an intern in 2011 and joined full time in 2012. As a
Management Consultant in Europe, during the most important economic crisis in decades,
he worked alongside firms and institutions to help them cope through the troubled times,
with assignments ranging from helping firms launch large-scale restructurings of their
European activities to identifying new channels of growth beyond European borders and
supporting governmental institutions in dealing with the financial crisis. He gained a breadth
of experience across most functional areas with specific projects in the HR, IT, finance,
purchasing, sales, and marketing sectors and significant experience in organizational issues,
with several projects that impacted organizations’ structures, sizes, and processes.
Over the past several years, Alex has developed strong analytical, problem-solving, and
communication skills. Going forward with the Wharton/Lauder program, he plans to leverage
his passion for language with the skills and business experience he has already acquired.
Alex enjoys outdoor sports, including skiing, hiking, playing golf, and sailing. He is passionate
about learning new languages and also enjoys helping others on the tedious path toward
French fluency.
Lauder Focus: East Asia and Japanese
JOÃO BAENA SOARES
João was born in Washington, D.C., to a family of Brazilian diplomats. He was raised in
Brasília, Quito, New York, and Buenos Aires and, from a young age, has been drawn to
learning about new cultures and languages.
A lifelong interest in literature and cultural studies led João to study philosophy at PUC-Rio.
There he focused on contemporary aesthetics and literary criticism, writing his final paper
on Walter Benjamin’s theory of allegory and philosophy of history. During this time, he also
worked as an English teacher.
During his final semester in 2008, João was hired as an intern at a financial advisory firm in Rio
de Janeiro, initially to prepare written materials used to request financing from government
institutions for projects in a variety of industries. As an analyst at the firm, he branched
out from his initial duties, gaining exposure to financial modeling and business concepts and
leading client work relating to financing various projects, such as subway lines, real-estate
development, hydroelectric plants, sugar and alcohol plants, and a clean-technology start-up.
Having enjoyed helping businesses in a variety of industries and wishing to acquire a
broader set of business-management skills, João joined Bain & Company as one of the first
hires at the Rio de Janeiro office. There he performed due-diligence work for private equity
funds and advised businesses in the oil & gas, telecommunications, and financial services
industries. He worked primarily in Brazil but took advantage of the opportunity to spend six
months at the Dubai office, where he was involved in cases in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the
UAE. During his two years at Bain, he travelled to more than 20 countries and worked with
colleagues who represented over 15 nationalities.
In his free time, João enjoys reading and playing guitar. He is fluent in Portuguese, English,
and Spanish.
As a Global tracker, João hopes Wharton/Lauder will introduce him to cultures and business
environments he would not be exposed to otherwise, such as Tanzania and Vietnam, and
provide him with a solid foundation in finance and management.
Lauder Focus: Global Program
SHUYANG BAI
Shuyang was born in the icy city of Harbin, China. During his adolescence, his family
moved to the U.S. territory of Guam, where he attended school with Guamanian locals and
learned first-hand about living in a multicultural society and the importance of cultural
understanding. Through his keen participation in soccer, he also learned about the unique
ability of sports to break cultural barriers.
Shuyang graduated from Northwestern University in 2008 with a double major in industrial
engineering and management science and economics. He was a member of the Omega
Chapter of the Sigma Chi fraternity, where he was a key player on the soccer team and
served as Scholarship Chair.
During college, Shuyang interned at Lehman Brothers’ investment banking division in Hong
Kong, where he participated in the IPOs for sports-apparel companies. After witnessing
China’s tremendous growth potential, he decided to return to Hong Kong with Lehman
Brothers after graduation. Following the company’s bankruptcy, he joined Blackstone’s
M&A team, where he was a core member, advising on a number of high-profile, cross-border
transactions in the financial, industrial, and metals and mining sectors across the Asia-Pacific
region.
In 2011, Shuyang joined the Swiss-headquartered private equity firm LGT Capital Partners,
where he was part of a small and integral team responsible for building out the firm’s Asian
business. He played a key role in executing private equity transactions in China, India, and
Indonesia and was promoted in 2014.
Shuyang aspires to establish a deeper connection with China through Wharton/Lauder. In
particular, he wants to explore opportunities in China’s sports sector, which is underdeveloped
relative to its western counterparts.
During his free time, Shuyang continues to be involved avidly in soccer as part of Ruby
Murrays in the Hong Kong Legal League. He also enjoys travelling, cheering for Juventus
F.C., and learning new languages.
Lauder Focus: East Asia and Mandarin Chinese
CHAKRA BANERJEE
Chakra was born in Bhutan and lived in a number of other Asian countries, where he befriended
children who hailed from the U.S., Germany, Sweden, and other European countries. At age
6, he moved to Kolkata, India, with his family. From an early age, he developed a passion
for cross-cultural experiences and life in various countries. He studied engineering with
a focus on production management and operations, pursuing undergraduate studies at
Jadavpur University in India and graduate studies at the Technical University of Hamburg
in Germany, where he received a full industrial scholarship from Deutsche Lufthansa AG.
As an undergraduate, Chakra was involved in many extracurricular activities, ranging from
participating in cricket and football to organizing quizzes and fests and industry placements
for peers. At his German university he was president of a 100+ member Indian student
organization aimed at educating Europeans about Indian culture and traditions. During this
time, he launched PRAGATI e.V, the first nonprofit at TU Hamburg, which currently supports
more than 200 underprivileged students in India with a capital backing of over €30,000.
After earning his undergraduate degree, Chakra worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)
in Performance Improvement, advising large Indian multinationals primarily in the areas of
operations improvement, enterprise planning, and integration, working throughout India.
His focus was on capacity-intensive industries such as manufacturing, pharmaceuticals,
beverages, and tourism.
After completing his Master’s in Engineering and Management in Germany, Chakra worked
as a Management Consultant with Deloitte Consulting’s Strategy & Operations wing, advising
German, Swiss, and Austrian multinationals on M&A, Acquisition Integrations, and P&L
Management post deals. During one of his major acquisition-integration engagements, he
served as a direct delegate to the CEO of a cluster country and worked alongside the CFO
and CTO, managing a multimillion dollar project portfolio during a US$33 billion acquisition
for a Big Pharma. In Europe, he worked extensively in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain,
and the UK, focusing primarily on the pharmaceutical, life-science, chemical, beverage,
and TMT sectors. In addition to furthering his professional skillsets, international business
experiences have led him to develop an enhanced curiosity about deeper cultural aspects of
the world.
Chakra speaks English, Hindi, Bengali, and German. At Wharton/Lauder, he plans to explore
the world, expand his nonprofit, and learn more about social-impact investing.
Lauder Focus: Europe and German
KATHARINE IRENE BIGOTT
Katharine was born in Newark, Delaware, and raised in suburban Chicago, Illinois. The
daughter of a professor and a government analyst, she grew up in a household full of books
and quickly developed a passion for literature, languages, and music. She began studying
French and oboe in middle school, pursuits she continues to enjoy.
Katharine attended Beloit College, a small liberal arts college in Wisconsin, with a music
scholarship, and double-majored in French and political science. Beloit’s flexible curriculum
enabled Katherine to study international development and economics while cultivating her love of francophone literature and culture. She also played principal oboe in the
Beloit College Orchestra, competed as a three-sport varsity athlete, served as president of
the College Democrats, participated in Model UN and EU, and volunteered as a campus
tour guide. She spent her junior year at the Université de Paris studying European history,
literature, and film. She then authored a senior honors thesis on the political, economic, and
social impact of natural resource wealth in West Africa and received the Departmental Prize
in Political Science, awarded annually to the top-performing senior.
Katharine’s curiosity about the business world intensified when she was competitively
selected for the Kemper Scholars Program, a national program in business leadership
for liberal arts students. Through this program, she undertook internships at the Shedd
Aquarium in Chicago and Podesta Group, a boutique government-affairs firm in Washington,
D.C., which exposed her to the nonprofit and for-profit sectors.
After graduation, Katharine joined Deloitte Consulting’s Federal Practice in Washington,
D.C. There, she spent four years working in the Financial Services and Emerging Markets
groups, advising major international-aid donors, including USAID and the World Bank. Her
work focused on private-sector development initiatives in Africa and the Middle East. Most
notably, she spent two months in South Sudan, working directly with the South Sudanese
Minister of Agriculture and Forestry to prepare speeches, presentations, and promotional materials for an investment-promotion conference. She also supported the stand-up of
agricultural innovation pilot projects in Kenya, Nigeria, and Zambia for AgResults, a $100
million multilateral fund incentivizing private-sector innovation in agriculture and food
security.
At Wharton/Lauder, Katharine is interested in studying how socially responsible privatesector investment in emerging markets can grow multinational businesses, create jobs, and
improve the quality of life for people around the world.
Lauder Focus: Europe and French
GEORGE BIRMAN
George was born in Lemberg (L’viv), a former Austro-Hungarian city that changed hands
multiple times during the twentieth century. Growing up in Chicago, Illinois, he was
fascinated by his family’s European roots and was raised bilingual, developing a passion for
language. He is fluent in French, Spanish, and Russian.
Initially interested in diplomacy, George attended the Walsh School of Foreign Service at
Georgetown University, earning a degree in International Politics. He spent a year working
at the Embassy of France and two semesters abroad at Sciences-Po Paris. He also spent
summers studying German in the Rhineland and working in London, where he was a summer
analyst at the Royal Bank of Scotland/ABN-AMRO, focusing on M&A and capital markets
advisory.
After graduation, George joined the investment-banking advisory team at N.M. Rothschild
& Sons Ltd., where he covered the consumer and retail sectors. His transaction experience
included advising Brown-Forman on the sale of its California wine business to Viña Concha
y Toro (Chile) and Wal-Mart on its acquisition of South African retailer Massmart. He also
developed expertise in corporate finance and valuation while working with some of the
world’s most sophisticated corporations and financial sponsors.
Seeking greater exposure to strategy and investing in emerging markets, George joined
Heineken NV as Manager of Corporate Development. There he focused on M&A, competitive
strategy, and commercial partnerships for the multinational brewer throughout Latin
America, the Caribbean, and North America, a division with $6 billion in revenue and 35
distinct markets. Working closely with senior management and external advisors, he managed
teams that identified, valued, and executed opportunities across the region’s emerging and
developed markets. His experiences included the acquisition of North American Breweries,
the divestiture of Heineken French West Indies, and post-merger strategy at FEMSA Cerveza
(Mexico) and Brasserie Nationale d’Haiti. He also helped to negotiate partnerships with
Molson-Coors, The Coca-Cola Company, Diageo, and Coca-Cola FEMSA in Canada, Brazil,
Jamaica, and Guatemala, respectively.
In New York, George helped found a group that facilitated dialogue between national
politicians, business leaders, and young professionals, and has worked with figures including
Jon M. Huntsman, Jr.
George is devoted to seeing the world and is interested in history and architecture. He loves
the outdoors, playing tennis, and skiing. He grew up studying the piano with his mother, a
concert pianist, from whom he inherited a love of music.
ROBERT BOND
Russia first fascinated Robert when he was a teenager living with his family in Moscow
in the mid-1990s. After studying philosophy, politics, and economics (PPE) and Russian
language at Claremont McKenna College, he returned to Moscow for an internship with a
U.S. investment firm. Returning to his hometown of Washington, D.C., he worked as a staff
assistant in the U.S. House of Representatives before joining the Foreign Service in 2007.
With no prior experience in the Middle East, Robert was thrilled to receive six months of
Arabic language training and a ticket to Saudi Arabia. A tour with the U.S. Embassy in
Riyadh adjudicating visa applications afforded him an incredible opportunity to travel in a
completely new area of the world, in addition to learning how to scuba-dive off the Red Sea’s
east coast.
Robert then headed to Russia and served in Embassy Moscow’s political section, covering
domestic developments. His tour coincided with the U.S.-Russian “Reset” in relations,
a period of historic bilateral engagement. Two years in the country also gave Robert the
opportunity to explore European Russia by train, the highlight of his time there.
Robert spent 2012 in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, working with local government and
private media outlets to boost the quality of public radio with an aim to increase local support
for the central government. Collaborating with elected officials and independent journalists,
he encouraged regular call-in shows, allowing citizens to voice complaints about government
services in an open and anonymous forum. Initially seeing this as a dangerous platform
for undermining the local administration, officials quickly recognized the opportunity to
showcase for a broad audience their creative and sustainable solutions to legitimate concerns.
Robert joins Wharton/Lauder from Embassy Athens, where for the last year he reported
on Greece’s bilateral foreign relations and the domestic political effects of the Greek
government’s reform efforts following the financial crisis.
An avid hiker and backpacker, Robert also enjoys running and playing rugby.
DANIEL BOUSKELA
Daniel was born in Campinas, Brazil, and grew up in São Paulo. In 2010, he completed
his studies in industrial engineering at Universidade de São Paulo (POLI-USP) and spent
the next four years working in private equity and new business development in Brazil.
From childhood, Daniel has been very interested in different cultures because his
parents travelled a great deal in their careers as executives. In 2008, to pursue his first
cross-cultural experience, he moved to France, enrolling in a double-degree program
at École Centrale de Lyon (ECL). As a result of creating a project to integrate Brazil
and France through gastronomy (one of his passions), he was awarded the Young
Ambassadeur prize that year by the Chamber of Commerce. Later, he moved to Paris to
intern for L’Oréal in a post-M&A project.
In 2010, following a stint at Nestlé Brazil’s finance division, Daniel was invited to be one
of the founders of a brand new Private Equity and Business Development Division at
Grupo Boticario (one of the largest multinational cosmetics players, with 3,000+ stores).
The objective of this new venture was to foster start-ups and create a PE fund in Brazil.
In 2011, Daniel helped to create two start-ups, one of which today has more than 100
stores. Later, the shareholders called on him to design an international plan for some
of the group brands. Daniel led the entire effort by analyzing and implementing the
project in European, African, and Latin American countries. In 2012, he participated in
the development of the PE fund (2+ Capital), focused on retail and consumer goods. He
then focused on the PE realm, participating in three relevant deals for the fund. In 2013,
he was given responsibility for one of the portfolio companies (co-shared with Carlyle).
Keenly interested in entrepreneurship and VCs, Daniel became one of the founders
of Nui!, a Brazilian online carbon-emissions compensation platform. His passion for
agriculture led him to plant more than 300 different trees and also to help his family’s
coffee plantation in Brazil.
In his free time, Daniel enjoys biking, playing squash, taking photographs, and travelling.
He speaks Portuguese, English, French, and Spanish and some Chinese. Daniel looks
forward to learning a great deal from the Wharton/Lauder communities.
GEORGE BRADT
Although George was born in New York City, New York, by age 18 his parents had moved to 9
different locations, including London, Tokyo, Taipei, Hong Kong and five cities in the U.S. This
itinerant lifestyle fueled his interest in different cultures and languages. Thus, he studied
Spanish, French, Latin, Ancient Greek, Italian, German, and Japanese in formal settings
such as Winchester College in the UK, Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and
the Universitat d’Alacant in Spain, and gained exposure to Arabic through an exchange with
Jordanian students. After graduating from Harvard in 2007, he studied Mandarin Chinese
while working as a teacher in rural China.
Moving to Shanghai in 2008, George began a career in the tax department of KPMG as a
transfer-pricing specialist in the Asia Pacific region. He and his supervisor were recruited to
join PwC to form a new, cross-departmental service line on a global basis. This value-chain
transformation focused on tax, supply–chain, and other issues related to global or regional
transformation of cross-border organizations.
At both KPMG and PwC, George worked primarily in project-management and coordination
roles, both internally in chief-of-staff roles and externally as a client-facing project
manager, where his clients came from a variety of industries (technology, medical, R&C,
and automotive) and geographies (the U.S., the UK, Europe, China, and Asia). In his role as
chief-of-staff, he helped build PwC’s value-chain transformation service line from scratch
into a global network of over 600 specialists in more than 60 countries. In FY2013, value-chain
transformation generated over $100 million in direct consulting revenue for the company.
In addition to his professional pursuits, George took an active role in organizing Harvard
alumni activities in the Shanghai region, serving as secretary of a relatively informal alumni
club for several years before working with a group of fellow alumni to rebuild the club in
a more structured way. During this time, he launched the Harvard Prize Book in China,
organized two college fairs in Shanghai, coordinated Harvard College admissions and
outreach activities for South China for three years, and served as an elected board member
and director of the Harvard Club of Shanghai.
After Wharton/Lauder, George would like to work in the fields of finance, education, and/or
entrepreneurship, especially in relation to emerging markets in Asia and elsewhere.
KALINE BRÜCKNER SAAB
Born in Panama to a Colombian-Lebanese mother and a German father, Kaline grew up in
a multicultural environment. Early in life, she began to build bridges between worlds and
learned to cross them.
Kaline attended a German school in Bogota and spent her holidays in a variety of countries
learning different languages (Switzerland, the U.S., China, and Germany). In addition
to Spanish, she speaks German, English, and French fluently and has basic knowledge of
Mandarin Chinese.
Kaline majored in industrial engineering and management at the Technical University of
Berlin, completing a double-degree with the EM Lyon in France, where she lived for a year.
During her studies, she interned at Volkswagen de Mexico and Johnson Controls in Puebla,
Mexico, where she was introduced to project management and the automotive industry.
Throughout her professional life, Kaline has benefitted from the experience of working
with people from different countries, cultures, and backgrounds. As an associate at Boston
Consulting Group in Berlin, Germany, she developed a launch strategy for a new material
in the chemical industry, landscaped the German retail industry for an international food
producer, and formulated a business plan for an automotive bank in Brazil. In 2009 she
decided to join the automotive industry and moved to the Volkswagen Group, where she first
worked for Carmeq, one of its subsidiaries. There she was a senior consultant, specializing
in the optimization of R&D processes for the industry.
Prior to beginning her graduate studies, Kaline worked for Volkswagen as a processes
expert, responsible for international R&D processes, including the coordination of R&D
headquarters and regional R&D strategy. Some of her achievements in this position included
the definition and implementation of the corporate process for acquiring Chinese import
certification, with time-to-market reduction of 50% for vehicles imported to China. She also
revised the definition of internal part approvals, reduced the number of required tests, and
thus decreased development costs by around 1%.
At Wharton/Lauder, Kaline expects not only to learn theories about the global economy, but
also to experience them first-hand, to interact with the real actors in the global economy, and
to deepen her knowledge of how to manage successful international teams.
Kaline is an avid reader and enjoys cultural events such as theater and opera. She loves
spending her holidays travelling around the world experiencing other cultures and countries.
MARCELO CATTANI
Of Italian, Spanish, and German descent, Marcelo was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
As a result of his father’s profession as an Argentine military pilot, he lived in eight
different cities during elementary and high school, including an extended stay beginning
at age 7 in Columbus, Mississippi. This particular experience sparked his early interest in
understanding life in different countries.
Marcelo received his Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Universidad de San Andres, one
of the most prestigious business and economics schools in Argentina. He was particularly
interested at that time in international economics and finance.
After graduation, Marcelo joined Value Partners Management Consulting as a Business
Analyst, based in the firm’s Buenos Aires office. During his time there, he participated in five
projects in Argentina, Chile, and Brazil and had the opportunity to team up with colleagues
from all over the globe. After a year and a half, he decided to pursue new challenges in
the financial industry and joined JP Morgan’s Investment Banking organization as a Credit
Analyst. In this new role, he was part of the U.S. Banks & Broker Dealers team and performed
credit coverage for more than 30 clients. During this time, he worked directly with a New
York City-based team and learned about changes in the American banking system that
resulted from the 2008 financial crisis.
Marcelo left JP Morgan in 2012 to join PepsiCo as the Strategic Planner for the Cookies &
Crackers business in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay. His main responsibilities
included providing financial and strategic support to all the areas involved in the operation
of the sector and the turnaround of the company’s most recent acquisition in the Southern
Cone. During his last year and a half there, he was involved in projects ranging from the
redefinition of the commercial channel mix strategy for the entire Cookies & Crackers
portfolio to the identification of capital expenditures to improve operations capabilities and
increase production capacity within the region.
Marcelo is an avid basketball player who has competed for the last 14 years in different
official tournaments. He also enjoys soccer, skiing, reading, and discovering new red wines.
Lauder Focus: Latin America and Portuguese
CHARLEY CHEN
Charley was born in a small city in China. At age 3, he moved to Huntsville, Alabama, with
his family. There, he developed a passion for sports. He played baseball and soccer and was
selected to the state Olympic Development Program for the latter. His experiences in team
sports and living in that region of the U.S. contributed to his senses of cultural sensitivity,
global-mindedness, and teamwork, which would define his experiences.
Charley attended Brown University, where he majored in applied mathematics and
economics. During his first summer, he interned at a major university in China, where he
helped to develop its international students’ department. He returned to China the following
summer to intern for a brokerage firm that tailored portfolios to meet clients’ needs.
For his penultimate year, Charley joined a boutique consulting firm in Rhode Island. As
part of his most significant project, he traveled to Manila, Philippines, to help found the
firm’s business-processing outsourcing group. This required assessing potential countries,
establishing connections with leading universities, and developing hiring policies and
procedures. Charley enjoyed the team- and project-based nature of the work and, after
graduation in 2010, joined Deloitte Consulting Strategy & Operations, based in Boston.
At Deloitte, Charley’s responsibilities took him all over the world, providing him with
experiences in the retail, healthcare, insurance, and banking sectors. He focused primarily
on helping Fortune 100 companies with the entire M&A lifecycle, from pre-deal due diligence
through operational execution and cut-over. He also worked on some of the most iconic deals
in the U.S. and Mexico, rotating through eight transactions.
In 2013, Charley became the first-ever pre-MBA practitioner approved for a global deployment
when he accepted a position in Deloitte’s emerging practice in Hong Kong. There, he was
able to use his previous M&A and general management experience to support banking and
insurance clients in a diverse array of project experiences, such as restructuring and market
entry.
In his free time, Charley enjoys travelling. While based in Hong Kong, he endeavored to
visit 12 countries in 12 months. He continues to play soccer whenever he can and reminisces
about the days when he thought he could go pro.
KSENIYA DEMCHENKO
Kseniya was born in Moscow, Russia, and moved to the U.S. at age 7 with her family. Growing
up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she was raised in a multicultural and
bilingual home, which led to her passion for languages and travel at an early age.
Kseniya enrolled in the Huntsman Program for International Studies and Business at the
University of Pennsylvania, where she pursued French as her target language. Over the
course of her undergraduate studies, she studied and worked in three French cities through
study-abroad programs and internship experiences. She received a B.S. in Economics
from the Wharton School, with concentrations in Finance and Management, and a B.A. in
International Studies from the School of Arts & Sciences, completing a major in Russian
Language, Literature and Culture to combine the language skills she developed at home with
a formal academic perspective.
After graduating in 2010, Kseniya joined Houlihan Lokey as an Analyst, pursuing a role
in Europe with the Special Situations/Financial Restructuring Group at a particularly
interesting time, when restructuring activity was at its height in the aftermath of the global
economic crisis. Based in London, she had the opportunity to work on several cross-border
transactions in different parts of Europe, including Greece, the UK, and the Netherlands.
During her time at Houlihan, she gained exposure to a variety of strategic options in both
creditor and debtor side roles, including restructuring plans, liquidation analyses, and
distressed M&A deals across a broad range of sectors.
Kseniya then transitioned to an Associate position with the Consumer team in private equity
at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. in the New York City office. There she gained experience in
evaluating investment opportunities and learned about favorable structuring and high-level
operational and strategy decisions. Through her work with the Consumer, Canada, and CPS
teams, she was involved in a range of projects, including buyouts, portfolio management,
and direct co-investments.
In her spare time, Kseniya enjoys skiing, hiking, oil painting, and trying out new recipes. She
also loves travelling and experiencing the outdoors.
PJETER DUSHKU
Pjeter is a first-generation Albanian American who was born and raised in Connecticut.
There, he grew up in a multilingual household surrounded by the sounds of Albanian,
Serbo-Croatian, Italian, and Greek. He recognized in middle school his own passion for
languages while studying Spanish and has continued to challenge himself ever since.
Pjeter attended Pace University, becoming among the first in his family to go to college.
He was active on campus, working as a mathematics tutor in the university’s student-run
tutoring center. He also served on the board of Beta Alpha Psi’s Iota Lambda chapter as the
director of community service, where he planned, coordinated, and executed various service
events for the organization’s members. During his junior year, he spent a semester abroad
in Sevilla, Spain, taking direct-enrollment courses in business and economics at Universidad
Pablo de Olavide and literature and humanities courses through Universidad de Sevilla. He
also honed his Spanish language skills and broadened his international business perspective.
He graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance and
minors in Spanish and Economics.
After graduation, Pjeter joined the Japanese bank Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation
in its New York City office within the North American Structured Finance Group. There,
he worked on originating, structuring, and executing financing solutions for large-scale
infrastructure and energy projects, and advising private companies on investments in the
space. Most recently, he was at Atlantic-Pacific Capital, a private equity advisory firm in
Greenwich, Connecticut, where he worked on capital-raising activities across a broad range
of alternative asset classes. He was involved directly in raising over $5.7 billion in capital
for six oversubscribed private equity funds during his time there. In addition, he is a CFA
charter holder and a member of the CFA Institute.
Outside his professional career, Pjeter volunteers as a mentor to ambitious high school
and college students in underserved communities, having also helped to found a nonprofit
mentoring program in 2008. In addition, he is a member of the New York City cohort of
Contemplative Leaders in Action, a faith-formation and leadership-development program
sponsored by the Jesuit Collaborative. In his free time, he enjoys running, travelling, and
exploring new cultures and looks forward to adding more languages and international
experiences to his repertoire while at Wharton/Lauder.
Lauder Focus: Latin America and Spanish
LIYA EIJVERTINYA
Liya was born in Daugavpils, Latvia, but moved to the U.S. at age 6. She grew up in Brooklyn,
New York, where she made friends with people from all over the world. This diverse
environment gave her an early experience with understanding different cultures and
nurtured her interest in global affairs.
As an undergraduate, Liya majored in social studies and economics at Harvard. She did
internships at Morgan Stanley and Axiom, an alternative law firm built around a consultingbusiness model. She was a volunteer with the Small Claims Advisory Service and served on
the executive board of The Advocate, Harvard’s oldest literary magazine. She also pursued
her interest in other cultures while in college, travelling throughout Europe and Latin
America and spending a summer teaching English in Dongguan, China.
After graduation, Liya first worked in management consulting at MMG Partners, before
moving on to Archstone Consulting. As a consultant, she worked for a variety of clients in the
manufacturing, agriculture, media, financial services, and public sectors. Her work took her
around the world, from Germany to South Korea and Brazil—experiences that encouraged
her interest in international business.
In 2012, Liya took time off from consulting to travel around Eastern Europe and live in
Moscow. While based in Russia, she was a research associate at the Center for New Media
and Society at the New Economic School, where she conducted a research project, “The
Russian E-Commerce Market: Development and Trends,” on e-commerce trends in Russia
and in emerging markets more generally. She also worked in business development at
B2B-Center, a leading Russian B2B online marketplace.
At Wharton/Lauder, Liya looks forward to learning more about businesses in emerging
markets, with a focus on international growth and cross investment between emerging
economies. She is fluent in Russian and conversational in French. She is also interested in
running, Bikram yoga, and Russian pop music.
EDUARDO ESCRIBANO MARTÍN
Eduardo was born in Madrid, Spain. He attended the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and
spent a year as an exchange student in Tilburg, Holland. He earned his degree in economics.
After graduation, Eduardo joined Accenture, where he focused mainly on banking projects
in South America. This gave him the opportunity to live and work in Colombia and Puerto
Rico and to travel around the region.
After several years, Eduardo decided to pursue his lifelong interest in international relations.
He left his consulting job to devote his time to preparing to join the Spanish Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. In 2006, after passing the exams and spending half a year at the Diplomatic
School in Madrid, he began to work at the Ministry’s International Economic Relations
Department, focusing on trade relations with Africa. He spent four months of that first year
in Guinea Bissau, as Spain’s only representative in that country. He also travelled to other
countries in West Africa, including Senegal and Gambia.
During his second year, Eduardo was posted as Deputy Head of Mission at the Embassy
of Spain in Zimbabwe, where he witnessed some of the most important moments in that
country’s recent history, including the 2008 elections and the hyperinflation that affected the
economy. His work at the embassy in Harare often took him to Zambia and Malawi. Given
the difficulties of travelling by plane from Harare, he made most of his trips by car, which
allowed him to become quite familiar with that area of Africa.
Eduardo then spent two years in Madrid, working primarily in the areas of human rights
and international treaties. Because Spain had to present reports to the United Nations on the
former aspect, he was very involved with the UN institutions in Geneva.
In 2011 Eduardo was sent to Tokyo, Japan, as Head of the Consular Section. There, he was in
charge of legal and consular affairs, ranging from issuing visas to assisting Spanish nationals
living in or traveling to Japan.
Eduardo’s hobbies include travelling, surfing, running, reading history books, and enjoying
music festivals.
KATHERINE FACKLER
Katie was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. Her travels to and
experiences in different parts of the world ignited her passion for learning about new cultures
and languages from an early age. She began Spanish classes in elementary school and added
French in junior high. Eager to experience French culture and improve her French, she spent
the summer after her sophomore year on an exchange program outside Toulouse, France. A
year later, she developed a deep interest in Africa following a trip to Tanzania and Kenya.
This inspired her to design her senior project to learn about fundraising, which culminated
in her raising over $10,000 for water and sanitation projects in rural Africa.
Katie combined her interests in languages and Africa by majoring in French and receiving
a Certificate of African Studies at Georgetown University, where she graduated summa cum
laude. During this time, she continued taking Spanish courses and spent a summer living in
Cusco, Peru, volunteering at a girls’ orphanage. She also spent a semester during her junior
year studying in Paris, increasing her French proficiency while taking classes in French art
history and literature.
After graduation, Katie was selected as a Princeton in Africa Fellow and moved to Cotonou,
Benin, to work for a year as the Pipeline & Reports Officer for the country office of the UN
World Food Programme (WFP). She participated in the WFP’s relief efforts, triggered by
the worst flooding there in over 50 years. She moved to Côte d’Ivoire after her fellowship to
continue working with the WFP as a consultant. This was followed by a position leading a team
responsible for reporting donor relations and communications with the WFP in Mauritania.
Katie assisted the office in responding to a drought in the Sahel and the surge of refugees
arriving from Mali after the military coup in March 2012. She then returned to Côte d’Ivoire
as Head of Information and Communications for the EU delegation based in Abidjan.
Katie’s desire to have a positive social and economic impact on the world drove her decision
to join Wharton/Lauder. She plans to pursue a career using business as a means of improving
global development.
In her free time, Katie enjoys hiking, yoga, salsa dancing, and travelling. She loves music
and has sung in different choirs, including the National Cathedral Choir in Washington, D.C.
STEVEN FEIS
Steven grew up outside Washington, D.C. An early interest in math and science led him to
research synergistic cancer treatments at the National Institutes of Health while in high
school, including co-authoring two articles in peer-reviewed journals and presenting his
research at a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research. He also had a
passion for music and won a Washington Post Music Scholarship.
Attending Yale College, Steven graduated cum laude and with recognitions, including
induction into the Psi Chi Psychology Honors Society, two research fellowships, the
Smith Arts Prize, and a Sudler grant. Initially pursuing a pre-medical curriculum,
he conducted research at the Yale School of Medicine, took coursework at Haskins
Laboratories, and completed internships at Hôpital Érasme in Brussels, Belgium, and at
the National Institutes of Health. He wrote his thesis on music history and completed an
effective minor in cognitive science. He also held leadership roles with several student
groups and sang as a soloist with the Yale Schola Cantorum and Juilliard415, among
other ensembles.
After graduation, Steven moved to Italy as a Fulbright Scholar. While pursuing archival
musicological research, he presented on behalf of the U.S. Consulate Speakers Bureau,
represented Italian Fulbright recipients at a pan-European Fulbright conference in
Berlin, Germany, and studied the Italian region of Lombardy and international rights.
Steven then moved to New York City and founded eScoreMusic, Inc., a start-up that
creates software for collaborative music notation. He led development of the concept
through market research, designs and wireframes, and beta testing of the minimum
viable product and oversaw the software launch and early establishment of the user
base. He also recruited other team members, supervised creation and implementation
of marketing strategies, demoed the company’s technology for New York Tech Meetup,
raised funding after pitching to VCs and angels, and filed for two pending patents.
While living in New York City, Steven also enrolled in a design-thinking and
social-innovation workshop co-taught by Stanford d.school and Project Breaker, where
he worked with organizations including IDEO, TED, MakerBot, and Viacom to prototype,
test, and iterate upon potential manufacturing-related products. He also studied software
engineering at General Assembly, mentored a high school student at the Academy for
Software Engineering, and served as alumni coordinator for the Opera Theatre of Yale
College.
Steven speaks French, Italian, and German. He enjoys cooking, travelling, playing piano,
and biking.
ROBERT FRIED
Robert was born and raised in Vienna, Virginia, a quiet town in the suburbs of Washington,
D.C. At age 4, he informed his grandmother that he would start a business when he finished
college. Robert maintained his focus and beat his prediction by three months, when he
launched the Chinese Language Institute (CLI) from his college dorm room.
As an undergraduate at Virginia Tech, Robert discovered his love of travel and cross-cultural
exchange. Among other adventures, he visited Haiti three times to volunteer with the
Haiti College Fund, lived in an Israeli settlement with cousins, and led 26 classmates to
New Orleans for relief work following Hurricane Katrina. His defining undergraduate
experience was the summer he spent backpacking through southern China with his notebook
and Chinese-English dictionary constantly in hand. He graduated summa cum laude with a
double major in political science and communication.
Robert’s entrepreneurial spirit and passion for cross-cultural learning merged when he
founded CLI while studying abroad in Beijing during his final semester of college. He
set up shop in Guilin, China, and in the next five years developed the organization into an
internationally recognized center for China studies. The company now occupies its own
5-story center in China, employs 35 local and international staff, and has hosted hundreds of
students from over 30 countries and 100 universities.
While his business was conceived to focus on language training, Robert soon identified a
market opportunity that was both scalable and trending: China study tours. In late 2009,
he began partnering with U.S. high schools and universities to host hundreds of students
in China for educational travel. In August 2012, he sold a third of the company to a Dutch
investor in a private equity deal.
While at Wharton/Lauder, Robert plans to unpack his experiences abroad and emerge with a
stronger understanding of the forces at play in China and around the world. He looks forward
to leveraging his international business experience with resources in both programs to start
new ventures while pursuing his degrees. In his free time, he enjoys playing the piano and
running.
ALAN GORDIN
Alan was born in Brooklyn, New York, to immigrant parents who came to the U.S. as
teenagers from the Soviet Union. As a first-generation American, he grew up in a bilingual
household and attended a small New Jersey prep school, joining the children of immigrants
from many different cultures. These factors exposed him to international diversity early on
and spurred his desire to study foreign languages. He learned to speak Russian at home and
studied Spanish in depth at school. During his sophomore year, he spent a month abroad in
Spain studying and enjoying a homestay with a local family who spoke no English.
At Emory University, Alan chose to pursue a double-major in economics and Russian, looking
to hone both his business and language skills for a career in international finance. He spent a
summer working in Kiev, Ukraine, assisting a small renewable-energy and decorative-mulch
business in order to improve the company’s marketing strategy and distribution network.
There he was exposed to the difficulties and challenges of doing business internationally. This
experience further reinforced his desire to gain a greater understanding of international
business and acquire the cultural tools necessary to succeed in this field.
When he was not studying, travelling or living abroad, Alan pursued his interest in
international project finance and worked at a boutique merchant bank based out of New York
City. He structured proposals and presentations to secure financing in developing countries
through U.S. government trade and development agencies.
After graduation, Alan took a position as a Credit Analyst for Bloomberg L.P., where he
built and maintained credit models that showed the capital structure of companies in the
aerospace and defense industry. He was selected to perform analysis on Russian companies,
which gave him insight into international accounting standards. In addition, he regularly
published articles on bankruptcy and credit risk in Bloomberg’s newsletters.
At Wharton/Lauder, Alan hopes to gain a better understanding of international business,
acquire a framework for solving cross-cultural problems, and develop his language skills to a
native level. He enjoys travelling, exploring new restaurants, skiing, reading, and investing.
ERICA HALL
Born and raised in a small town in New Jersey, Erica developed a passion for international
travel at a young age through educational exchange programs. A home stay in France at
age 11 initiated her appreciation for the French language and culture, which she began to
develop more seriously during high school.
As an undergraduate business major and French minor at Bucknell University, Erica
continued to pursue her interests in foreign cultures and languages, spending a semester
studying in Tours, France. Through a unique curriculum of business and internationalrelations courses, and her involvement with a volunteer organization in Nicaragua, she
became interested in international development and how international capital markets
can help solve fundamental problems in developing countries. This led her to co-found a
microfinance club, where she applied the theories she was learning to the difficulties people
around the world experience in accessing basic financial services.
After graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, Erica began her career at Cowen and
Company, a boutique investment bank in New York City. As a member of the Capital Markets
team, she was responsible for originating public and private equity and debt transactions
for growth-sector companies. During her time at Cowen, she executed financings ranging
from debt private placements for U.S.-based biopharmaceutical companies to IPOs for
China-based technology start-ups.
In 2012, Erica decided to pursue her interest in international-development finance more
directly by joining Developing World Markets (DWM), an asset manager that seeks both
financial and social returns through investments in microfinance institutions in emerging
and frontier markets. There, she raised capital from institutional investors throughout the
U.S., Europe, and Asia. She also researched and structured new products for DWM, including
a bond issuance from an Azerbaijani financial institution, a London Stock Exchange-listed
microfinance fund, and an African private equity fund.
Outside work, Erica remains committed to social impact as a young professional board
member of Women’s World Banking, a global network of microfinance institutions, and as a
mentor through Big Brothers Big Sisters. In her spare time, she enjoys swimming, cooking,
reading, travelling, and running distance races, including the New York City marathon in
2013.
ROBERT DAVID HAMILL
Rob grew up on a small tropical island in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Surrounded
by the warm island culture and a diverse community, at an early age he developed a strong
interest in international affairs and the developing world.
After moving to the U.S. to attend Brigham Young University (BYU), Rob took a two-year
leave of absence from school to serve a volunteer mission in Montreal, Canada, where he
worked closely with diaspora groups from Latin America, Africa, and Haiti and assumed
various leadership responsibilities, eventually overseeing the efforts of 180 other volunteers.
In this role, he gained a passion for learning about other cultures.
Rob returned to the U.S. to finish his studies at BYU, where he completed a double major in
international relations and French studies. He also worked part-time as a French instructor
and curriculum designer for Haitian Creole, Marshallese, and French language training
programs and picked up marathon-running in his spare time.
After graduation, Rob accepted a short-term position at the Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, France, where he worked in the communications bureau as a liaison between international media outlets and policy experts and
economists. He thrived in this fast-paced multilingual and multicultural environment. In
addition to his communications responsibilities, he researched post-recession infrastructure
investments around the world.
Rob then joined Deloitte Consulting as a strategy consultant working with public-sector
institutions around the world. In the firm’s International Development practice, he specialized
in connecting innovation from the public and private sectors to government institutions in
developing countries, including Haiti, Kosovo, and Guatemala.
At Deloitte, Rob was selected to participate in GovLab, a highly competitive innovation
fellowship and leadership development program. In this program, he researched emerging
trends and developed business solutions that he then marketed and sold to clients. His
research focused on crowd-sourcing in the public sector, productive applications of video
games, and the emergence of a marketplace for personal data.
Beyond his professional and academic pursuits, Rob is an active member of his community
and serves on the board of Foyer de Sion, a nonprofit orphanage in Croix-des-Bouquets, Haiti.
He loves playing music, cycling, hiking, and studying modern design. He is fluent in French,
Spanish, and Haitian Creole.
DIEGO HERNANDEZ DIAZ
Diego was born and raised in Guadalajara, Mexico. As a teenager, he was able to earn his
American high school diploma in Mexico while spending summers in Germany and Canada
learning and perfecting his language skills.
Diego decided to pursue his undergraduate education in the Jerome Fisher Program in
Management and Technology at the University of Pennsylvania. His pursuit of dual degrees
in computer science engineering and management and finance enabled him to better
understand the intersection of technology, business, and innovation. During his time at Penn,
he was actively involved with the Undergraduate Leadership Program as a Management 100
teaching assistant. He was also involved with the International Affairs Association, where
he participated in chair and moderator capacities for high school and college Model UN
conferences.
Following a successful internship in Credit Suisse’s Equity Research department focused
on life insurance companies, Diego returned after graduation to work on the Healthcare
Technology and Distribution team. During his three years at Credit Suisse, he was able to
study first-hand the belated globalization of the healthcare services industry. His research
led him to broaden his team’s and investors’ understanding of the European pharmaceutical
supply chain, the Chinese and Brazilian drug-wholesaling market, and the electronic
health-record opportunities present in the Asia Pacific and Middle East regions. Concurrently,
he began an innovative research product describing his experience with consumer products
manufactured by his companies in an effort to provide “an insider’s look.”
At Wharton/Lauder, Diego plans to perfect his Portuguese and seek potential career
opportunities in healthcare in Latin America.
Diego is an avid cook and exercise junkie, and is passionate about travel. Most recently,
he has begun to explore the geography and culture of Scandinavia and is already looking
forward to his next great adventure.
BENJAMIN JOHNSON
Ben was born in Towson, Maryland, and attended Friends School of Baltimore and the
Winchester Thurston School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He excelled in the performing arts
and studied Spanish, Latin, and Japanese.
As an undergraduate at New York University, Ben developed a love for travel and volunteering internationally. He studied theater in Prague, Czechoslovakia, participated in
rural development projects in Haiti, and received the French Book award for excellence in
the study of French. He graduated summa cum laude with a degree in dramatic literature
and theater history.
After graduation, Ben worked at an environmental NGO, assisted with the G20 Summit in
Pittsburgh, and taught English to adult immigrants through the Pittsburgh Literacy Council.
In 2010, he joined the Peace Corps and was sent to the Republic of Moldova. There, he was
posted to Anenii Noi, a Russian-speaking village on the border of Transnistria.
For two years, Ben worked with schools and NGOs, promoting new teaching practices,
facilitating leadership-building activities for youth, and building capacity in partner organizations by assisting them in implementing community-development projects. He also
evaluated USAID grant proposals to allocate funding to civil-society and economic-development projects and conducted training sessions on project design and management
for community leaders. In 2012, he was asked to remain for a third year in Moldova as a
Volunteer Leader to manage training for new volunteers and to assist with program development at Peace Corps Moldova.
As a result of this international experience, Ben enrolled at Penn Law, where he currently
serves as a board member for the International Human Rights Activists and as president of
the Eastern European Law Students Association. He is interested in international trade law,
particularly as it affects emerging economies.
Ben speaks Russian as well as a little Romanian and French. Through the Lauder program,
he looks forward to deepening his understanding of Russian history and culture. He enjoys
fencing, rock-climbing, and scuba-diving.
ALEKSAS JUSKYS
Aleksas was born in Chicago, Illinois, to immigrant parents from Lithuania. Growing up in a
bilingual family provided the seed for his interest in other cultures and languages. During
the break-up of the Soviet Union, he participated in a freedom protest on the steps of Capitol
Hill. He was just a child, but it opened his eyes to a far different world of sociopolitical
conflicts and struggles.
During his sophomore year of high school, Aleksas pursued a study-abroad program in
Spain. He later studied in both France and Italy while attending the University of Illinois,
where, between trips to the airport to pursue his flying career, he earned his B.S. in Finance.
Aleksas’ passion for travel, love of flying, and strong sense of patriotism led him to join the
U.S. Air Force. After nearly two years of pilot training, he finished as the top graduate in
his class and realized his dream of flying the F-16. From Afghanistan to South Korea, he has
lived, travelled, or worked in more than 60 countries.
In 2010, Aleksas had the privilege of attending the Weapons School—the Air Force’s elite
tactical leadership school, similar to the Navy’s “Top Gun.” Graduating at the top of his class
once again, he was invited back to serve as an Instructor Pilot, where he instilled leadership
traits critical to success in any rapidly changing environment. He was the F-16 air-to-aircombat subject-matter expert and worked closely with the Marine Corps, enhancing their
mission effectiveness. While teaching at the Weapons School, he also planned and led large
missions utilizing more than $12 billion in assets, served as a tactical mentor to international
exercises involving more than a dozen countries, and developed and taught academics in
collaboration with the Navy, the Army, and the Marine Corps.
In his free time, Aleksas enjoys skiing and playing soccer and tennis, among other outdoor
activities. He is also an avid photographer and loves to explore the world. He looks forward
to learning from the diverse group of students and faculty who embody Wharton/Lauder and
who share a deep respect for other cultures.
KEVIN OLLOKOT KEEFE
Kevin was born in Seattle, Washington, and spent his childhood on the Nez Perce Indian
reservation in northern Idaho. He is a member of the Nez Perce tribe, and his passion for
learning about other cultures grew from his experience learning his tribal language and
traditions.
Kevin began learning Spanish in high school and continued studying the language while
an undergraduate at the University of San Francisco (USF), during which he completed a
month-long language immersion trip in Puebla, Mexico, and a yearlong study-abroad trip in
Barcelona, Spain. After returning from Spain, he began studying Portuguese and later spent
a summer interning with a microfinance bank in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
After earning his undergraduate degree in business, Kevin next completed a Master’s in
International and Development Economics at USF. For his research, he evaluated the impact
of Brazil’s conditional cash-transfer program, Bolsa Família, on child labor. In addition to
analyzing nationally representative datasets, he visited numerous favelas in Belo Horizonte
to conduct key informant interviews with Bolsa Família beneficiaries.
Building on the experiences of his public-policy-focused scholarly research, over the next
three and a half years, Kevin worked in Washington, D.C., for Kauffman & Associates,
Inc. (KAI), a public-policy consultancy that specializes in American Indian and Alaska
Native (AI/AN) policy issues. He served as a manager and researcher on various projects
related to public health and education, while also managing client relations with federal
agencies, developing strategic partnerships, and securing new business opportunities for
KAI. Most recently, he led an effort funded by the U.S. Department of Education to recruit
tribally operated schools to participate in the only nationally representative study focused
specifically on the educational experiences of AI/AN students.
At Wharton/Lauder, Kevin hopes to perfect his Portuguese and later secure a consulting
job with a firm based in Brazil. In his spare time, he enjoys reading, dancing samba and
forró, watching sports—in particular, F.C. Barcelona, Seattle sports teams, and boxing—and
discovering new cafés and restaurants.
TONY KEFFLER
Tony was born and raised in Amarillo, Texas. While in high school, he escaped the small-town
atmosphere by travelling with small groups of peers to diverse regions of the world.
Journeying to Southeast Asia, Australia, and Latin America during these summers, he
quickly discovered a love of international culture and history. His time in Argentina studying
Latin American literature and Spanish, in particular, inspired him to continue that pursuit
in college.
At the University of Texas (UT) at Austin, Tony studied Latin American studies and history,
graduating in 2011 with honors. While at UT, he pursued his interests in human rights and
international law in Latin America by interning at UT Law’s Rapoport Center for Human
Rights and traveling to Brazil to participate in a project examining the legal issues of
Afro-descendant land title under Brazilian law. In addition, he completed a senior thesis on
the negotiation of identity in queer Cuban-American cultural works.
After graduation, Tony pursued his interest in Latin America by moving to Mexico City,
Mexico, and working at Casa de los Amigos, a Quaker center for peace and international
understanding. There, he worked with a global team who provided hospitality and
accommodation for migrants, refugees, and travelling guests from all over the world. This
gave him the opportunity to support the work of regional cooperatives of women and rural
farmworkers and to collaborate with international organizations, such as the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration in
Mexico. While in Mexico, he also had the chance to explore the exceedingly rich and diverse
cultural regions of the country, from El Bajío to Chiapas, which deepened his appreciation
for and interest in Latin America.
Tony enrolled at Penn Law in 2013 with a desire to develop legal expertise in Latin American
corporate and development work, immigration, and international law. He is the political
director of Lambda Law and the casework coordinator for the Immigrant Rights Project. He
is thrilled to join the Lauder community and to develop his skills with such an impressive
group of international leaders.
Tony’s interests include live music and working out. He is also a novice golfer.
SABINA KHANNA
Sabina grew up in the U.S. and spent most of her childhood in Buffalo, New York. She visited
India at least once a year, as most of her family was there. Through these visits, she learned
about the Indian culture and how to speak Hindi. Because most of her family owns businesses, she also learned how to run a business in India and the differences and similarities in
doing so within different countries.
Sabina attended the University of Pennsylvania, where she majored in both bioengineering and finance and obtained a Master’s in Biotechnology. While at Penn, she developed an
interest in international development, especially in South Asia. She participated in a Global
Bioengineering Leadership program for two weeks in Hong Kong, where she worked with
a team of Penn bioengineers to develop orthotics for underprivileged children in Southern
China. She was also a co-founder and leader in Sangam, one of the main Pan-Asian discussion
groups on campus. This forum enabled the Pan-Asian community to come together and
discuss particular issues that affected them, such as the exotification of Asian women or the
Hindu-Muslim divide. Through these activities, Sabina was able to continue her interest in
international subjects, particularly within the Asian sphere.
For about three years after graduation, Sabina worked at L.E.K. Consulting, where she
specialized primarily in healthcare, life-science, and biotechnology consulting services. She
was exposed to a wide variety of topics across these three sectors—from where to focus
fundraising efforts at a diabetes nonprofit to sizing up a particular technology that could
potentially revolutionize surgery. She also worked in L.E.K.’s London office for six months,
where she learned about the healthcare and pharmaceutical world within Europe.
Sabina is looking forward to the Wharton/Lauder program—in particular to being able to find
the intersection between international business and healthcare/biotechnology.
Lauder Focus: South Asia and Hindi
JOHN SZE-MING KHOR
Growing up in the multicultural environment of Washington, D.C., as the son of Malaysian
and Singaporean parents, Ming has always been fascinated by people and their customs. A
trip to China’s countryside during high school to discover his roots sparked his interest in his
ethnic heritage and his desire to perfect his Mandarin Chinese.
Seeking to broaden his worldview, Ming moved to Canada and majored in international
relations and East Asian studies at the University of Toronto. He continued to spend his
summers in China, volunteering with the Bo Ai Foundation, a philanthropic organization. He
taught English to students in rural Shanxi, provided emergency aid to victims of the 2008
Sichuan earthquake, and raised funds for school infrastructure projects.
Inspired by these experiences, Ming decided to move to China after graduation to continue
exploring his passion for the Middle Kingdom and her people. He joined WorldTeach and
served as an English teacher at a school in the developing city of Zhuzhou in Hunan province.
He made several innovative contributions at this school, including a series of creative
language-diagnostic mechanisms, data-tracking tools, and a preparatory club for students
seeking to go abroad for college. His efforts earned him a certificate for excellence in
teaching from the provincial government.
After completing his year of service, Ming joined the nonprofit organization Teach For China
(TFC), a bold start-up with a mission to combat educational inequity in China by recruiting
talented individuals to serve as teaching fellows in the country’s most underserved areas.
As a program manager with TFC, he helped to lead the organization’s expansion into the
Baoshan region of western Yunnan province. In addition to managing the first TFC cohort
of English-teaching fellows in Baoshan, he contributed to the rapid growth of the region’s
program during the first two years following its inception.
Working in the developing world has been a transformative experience for Ming. Entering
Wharton/Lauder, he is particularly interested in exploring the concepts of productivity and
human capital development as they relate to East Asia. In the future, he hopes to develop
business ideas that bring growth to poverty-stricken areas, providing opportunities for jobs
that allow young people to explore their passions.
In his spare time, Ming enjoys playing football, basketball, soccer, and volleyball. He also
likes to cook and play the piano.
IVAN KOUTSAROV
Ivan was born in Stara Zagora, a small town in Bulgaria. He had his first international
experience on a visit to Moscow when he was only six months old. At the time, Moscow
was still the capital of the USSR. Planning to study abroad at some point, Ivan attended the
Foreign Language School in his town, where he was involved in the Youth City Council, a
local NGO. There, he worked on various international projects and travelled to a number of
Eastern European countries. This experience inspired him to major in international relations
(IR) at the University of Pennsylvania.
While in college, Ivan took every opportunity to expand his IR experiences, both in and
outside the classroom. He was an active member of the International Affairs Organization,
where he captained the school’s MUN debate team, and he co-founded EuroPenn, the
undergraduate European Student Association. After graduation in 2008, he headed to New
York City to join the global consulting practice in Towers Perrin’s executive compensation
group. Shortly thereafter, he moved to London, where he joined IHS Global Insight as an
Energy Analyst, providing political-risk and economic analysis on the energy sector to the
European Union. This position enabled him to explore his interests in assessing the nuanced
energy relationship between the EU states and Russia.
In 2010 Ivan returned to the U.S. to join the Greenwich, Connecticut, office of Mars & Co., a
strategy consulting firm. During his time there, he had the opportunity to gain experience
in a wide variety of industries, including financial services, payment networks, CPG,
manufacturing, mobile technologies, and multilevel marketing. His work also helped him
expand his international experience as he completed projects in Australia, Chile, and Mexico
and worked with clients and colleagues based in France, the UK, Belgium, Germany, China,
and Japan.
Outside work, Ivan is a keen mountaineer and takes every opportunity to go climbing or
hiking. He also enjoys practicing different martial arts and is involved in Krav Maga, boxing,
and wrestling.
Ivan’s long-term ambition is to set up an advisory and/or investment firm, providing
consulting advice to entrepreneurs and mid-market businesses in his native Eastern Europe,
thus helping the region develop its ties to the global economy more effectively.
Lauder Focus: Europe and Russia
VIJAY KUKREJA
Early on, Vijay was influenced by many cultures. He spent much of his childhood in New
Delhi, India, before immigrating to the multicultural city of Toronto, Canada, at age 16. He
grew up speaking English at school, Hindi with his friends, and a regional language called
Multani with his parents.
Eager to pursue his interest in languages and cultures, Vijay studied international business
at the Schulich School of Business at York University, graduating with an honors degree
in 2008 with specializations in accounting and economics. There, he wrote for the student
newspaper, held a number of leadership positions in clubs, and helped organize the largest
student-run conference on campus. He also spent a semester at ESADE Business School in
Barcelona, Spain. He became interested in the growth of the Chinese economy and spent the
summer after graduation learning Mandarin at the Beijing Language and Culture University.
While in college, Vijay completed two internships at Ernst & Young in Toronto, working on
M&A transactions for some of the largest oil & gas and mining companies in Canada. After
graduation, he started as a rotation analyst in a management-training program within RBC
Capital Markets in Toronto and New York City. Over the next three years, he rotated between
trading and risk-management functions while working directly with senior executives on
strategic projects dealing with regulatory-required capital requirements. He also earned his
Chartered Accountancy designation at the bank, one of the first in Canada to do so outside a
public accounting firm. Vijay is also a CFA charter holder. At the end of the rotation program,
he moved to Beijing to guide his family’s trading business in starting new operations
within the agricultural commodities sector. Two years later, after building the business
to profitability, he transferred all responsibilities to his family and returned to Canada to
work in private equity with a focus on renewable energy in the Asia Pacific region. Working
for a California-based and then a Germany-based private equity firm, he spearheaded tax
structuring, fundraising, and on-the-ground project development for solar photovoltaic and
biomass power projects, while spending time in Bangkok and Tokyo.
Through Wharton/Lauder, Vijay wants to better understand the complex political and
economic landscape of the Indian subcontinent while also improving his Spanish and
Mandarin language skills. He is an avid traveler, having visited 36 countries to date. He
plays soccer competitively.
Lauder focus: South Asia and Hindi
XI LIAN
Xi was born in a small town powered by the mining industry in rural Yunnan, China. She
grew up speaking two local Yunnan dialects at home and learned traditional Mandarin in
elementary school. At age 11, she moved to the U.S. and began to learn English.
Having lived in an underdeveloped part of China, where technology was virtually nonexistent,
Xi became fascinated with how technology transformed the way people lived in the U.S. This
interest motivated her to study operations research and industrial engineering at Cornell
University, where she found a passion for helping businesses around the world improve
through technology and analytics. While studying abroad at the University of Edinburgh in
Scotland, she led a student-run consulting team to help a local nonprofit increase revenue by
establishing an online presence. This experience earned her the Engineering Global Fellows
award at Cornell.
After graduation, Xi continued to do consulting work at A.T. Kearney and focused on using
advanced analytics tools to help clients improve their operations. She worked with many
global businesses across multiple industries, including media, hospitality, and financial
services.
Xi’s passion for technology ultimately led her to Amazon. In 2011, she joined the Consumer
Electronics team as a Product Manager in a start-up environment tasked with growing
Amazon’s new warranty business. She helped double the U.S. business by collaborating with
vendors to expand selection and working with engineering teams to build marketing tools.
She also facilitated improvement beyond the U.S. marketplace by working with teams in
Europe and Asia to design, test, and launch country-specific warranty features.
To gain experience managing a mature business, Xi joined the Books team as an Instock
Manager. She led many projects to improve Amazon’s supply-chain management processes,
including working with engineering teams from China to improve automation of unhealthy
inventory removals. Her technical background helped her launch a complex project to
improve in-stock rates by directing customers from older-edition to newest-edition books,
achieving significant revenue and in-stock rate improvement. This project expanded her
Instock footprint globally, as other teams sought to implement similar solutions. Her ability
to use Big Data to pioneer innovative solutions earned her an Inventor Award for two pending
patents.
In her free time, Xi enjoys road-cycling, reading epic fantasy novels, and cheering on the
New England Patriots.
MARIA LOHNER
Maria is a first-generation American who grew up in a trilingual home in the suburbs of
Washington, D.C., speaking German, Spanish, and English. Both of her parents are German,
although her father grew up in Argentina, and most of her family lives in Argentina and
Bolivia. For 13 years, she attended an Argentine school every Saturday to learn Spanish and
attended the German School until fifth grade. In middle school and high school, she studied
French and did a summer exchange to further supplement her classroom learning. Her
family travelled abroad during vacations, visiting grandparents in Germany and Argentina
and spending three weeks in Barcelona, Spain, where her father worked every summer.
Maria attended Claremont McKenna College, where she majored in economics with a
sequence in finance, and graduated cum laude and with honors. During her summer break,
she worked abroad in Melbourne, Australia, to learn more about a different part of the
world. She spent eight weeks at AXA, a French insurance company, as an intern working on
Culture Change (AXA’s culture-change program), helping to launch the Olympic Partnership
Campaign, and working with “Hearts in Action” (AXA’s charitable trust).
After graduation, Maria joined Citigroup in Los Angeles, California, where she spent two
years as an Investment Banking Analyst working on M&A in the healthcare and industrials
sectors. She then joined HarbourVest’s secondary private equity team as an Associate,
where she focused on analyzing, structuring, and monitoring secondary private equity
opportunities, including portfolios of company investments and structured transactions.
Because she is passionate about socially responsible investing, she also helped to craft the
firm’s environment, social, and governance policy. In her free time, she volunteered for the
Junior League of Boston, a charitable organization focused on the health and education of
women and girls. In her second year of membership, she chaired the largest fundraiser
of the year, the annual gala, which raised ~$70,000, a record in the organization’s history.
Outside work, Maria invests in Argentine forestry with her family, a merging of her interest
in sustainable investing and asset-class diversification.
In her spare time, Maria enjoys working out, trying new foods and wines, and, of course,
travelling.
LESTER LOI
Lester was born and raised in Singapore by parents of Chinese origin. As a result of his
father’s frequent job moves, early on he developed a keen international curiosity that
encouraged him to explore different countries. Seeing poverty first-hand while he was living
in Guadalajara, Mexico, had a profound impact on his view of the world. Moved to address
this issue closer to home, he subsequently spent three summers during high school working
with underprivileged children in northern Thailand.
Lester received an academic scholarship to read electronic and electrical engineering at
Imperial College in London, where he took the opportunity to pursue his interest in different
cultures. He continued to study Spanish while taking extra classes in French, and travelled
extensively to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, cultivating friendships with people from
all over the world in the process. He was also actively involved in several outdoor clubs and
graduated with First Class Honors in 2007.
Hoping to balance his technical background by building behavioral competencies, Lester
took a graduate position at Morgan Stanley. He contributed in various capacities within
Sales and Trading, most recently serving as deputy to the Chief Operating Officer in the
Institutional Equities Division, where he achieved $96 million in savings over two years by
implementing and overseeing expense management initiatives. He was actively involved
in the community in which he lived and worked, serving as chairperson of the East Asian
employee network and steering committee member of the Environmental and Social Finance
forum at Morgan Stanley, as well as advocating for Stop the Traffik and Five Talents.
Outside work, Lester hopes to climb Aconcagua, bring his golf handicap down to single
figures, and finish outside the bottom three in a downhill ski race. He would also love to add
to the 60 countries he has visited to date. He continues to be passionate about issues of social
justice, and wishes to use business as a tool for empowerment. He hopes that his experiences at Wharton/Lauder will equip him with the global management skills and local cultural
awareness to undertake this project on an international scale.
AKSHAY MANDAN
Born and raised for a time in culture-rich Mumbai, Akshay gained exposure to multiple
Indian cities, including Ahmedabad, Chennai, Chandigarh, and Delhi. Moving so often honed
his interest in bridging cultural boundaries through an understanding of both differences
and commonalities. Eager to build on his cross-cultural experiences overseas, Akshay
pursued his undergraduate studies at the Dubai campus of the Birla Institute of Technology
and Science, where he majored in electronics and instrumentation engineering.
After graduation, Akshay returned to India and joined the Jubilant Bhartia Group, an Indian
conglomerate working across industries such as life sciences, pharmaceuticals, retail, and
food works. As an in-house consultant, he provided strategic expertise to these different
businesses on projects involving operations, process improvements, marketing, and the
supply chain.
Akshay’s time at Jubilant strengthened his passion for consulting. But what really set the
experience apart was helping to turn recommended solutions into concrete performance
improvements. In helping businesses drive to execution, he has become wiser in developing
pragmatic strategies for businesses.
Several projects involved working directly with daily-wage factory workers and farmers
with smaller land-holdings, respectively. Akshay was able to design strategies that not only
proved sustainable for the businesses, but also promoted a sense of ownership among the
workers and empowered the farmers to make independent decisions. These experiences
inspired him to leverage his skills toward driving large-scale social change, and he then
joined Dasra, a strategic philanthropy foundation based out of Mumbai.
As part of the Portfolio team at Dasra, Akshay provided capacity-building support to
education- and child-malnutrition-focused nonprofits to help them achieve impact at scale.
In addition, he performed and led due diligence across sectors including urban sanitation,
sports for development, anti-sex trafficking, and domestic violence. Interested in bringing
innovative improvements to India’s social sector, he worked proactively with strategic
partners toward exploring the potential of innovative financing through Social Impact Bonds
in India.
At Wharton/Lauder, Akshay looks forward to coupling his MBA studies with improved crosscultural knowledge. Outside his professional endeavors, he is passionate about racquet
sports, especially tennis. He also enjoys cooking and trying a variety of restaurants and
different cuisines. In addition, he is learning Spanish, as part of his ongoing quest to become
a global citizen.
Lauder Focus: South Asia and Hindi
HARSHAD MARAL
Born and raised in cosmopolitan Mumbai, Harshad grew up learning four Indian languages:
Marathi from his immediate family, Gujarati from Parsi neighbors, Hindi from the
North Indian community around his home, and Sanskrit from teachers at his school. This
multilingual environment cultivated his appreciation for etymology and grammar in
different languages. Summer courses in calligraphy and fine arts, coupled with a desire to
learn foreign languages, kindled his interest in East Asian scripts of picture-based Chinese
characters.
Harshad majored in electrical engineering at IIT Bombay, during which time he developed
a keen fascination for communication technology. He spent summers at Rice University
and New York University, experimenting with novel techniques to improve wireless
communication speeds, and at Microsoft Research, learning about the latest developments
in communication technology from Stanford and Princeton faculty. His curiosity for finding
better and faster ways to communicate led to the invention of a new protocol, now patented
as a part of the WiMax standard. In student councils, Harshad served as the secretary of
literary arts for his hostel, coordinator of the Department Academic Mentorship Program,
and journalist for campus newsletters and magazines.
After graduation, Harshad joined Sony Japan in its IPTV business, which aligned well with
his passion for communication. It also provided him with a unique opportunity to learn
Japanese language and culture. As a Digital Rights Management engineer, he upgraded the
DRM design in contemporary BRAVIA products to facilitate the streaming of the London
2012 Olympics on Sony TVs. In this role, he coordinated a team of five engineers at Sony
India and collaborated with teams at Microsoft UK and Toshiba Japan. Following an early
promotion, he took responsibility as Feature Leader to release features of IPTV content
playback and software updates in global markets for consumer electronics. In this role, he
directed the efforts of six engineers at Sony China and collaborated with stakeholders across
teams in Business Development, Product Planning, and Marketing in Sony’s offices across
the U.S., Europe, and Asia. During this time, he also passed the second-highest level of the
Japanese Language Proficiency Test.
Harshad is a voracious reader, an art connoisseur, and an avid nature-lover. Scaling Mount
Fuji was a high point in his mountaineering career. Sailing in the North Pacific Ocean and
snorkeling in the East China Sea triggered his enthusiasm for marine sports, and he looks
forward to diving in new international waters.
JB MAREK
JB was born in California and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada. Participating in competitive
basketball tournaments throughout the U.S. fostered his early interest in travel. This passion
took him to the East Coast for college and then to China.
JB graduated from Princeton University with a major in economics and a certificate
in political economy. He held leadership positions in athletic, student government, and
volunteer organizations. He also began studying Chinese and spent a summer abroad with
the Princeton in Beijing immersion program. This experience inspired him to return to
China after graduation.
Hailing from a family of educators, JB developed a strong interest in education and its role
in developing countries. Motivated by his enthusiasm for China, he joined the educational
start-up Teach For China. As a seventh-grade teacher, he taught English to more than 200
students in low-income areas in rural Yunnan. During his two-year teaching fellowship, he
increased his students’ academic performance significantly and formed close relationships
with the local community. He also achieved his childhood dream of becoming a professional
basketball player when he joined a government-sponsored team in a province-wide
tournament.
JB’s experiences with Teach For China led to an interest in start-ups and their ability to
meet the unique challenges present in China. After completing his fellowship, he moved
to Shanghai, eager to embrace the city’s dynamic entrepreneurial environment. He joined
the real estate start-up Juwai, the largest Chinese international property portal. As a Senior
Product Manager, he worked alongside the company’s co-founders to define product-release
requirements and shape go-to-market strategy. He also advised international real estate
agents and developers seeking to enter the Chinese market.
JB has traveled extensively throughout China and much of Asia. He enjoys exercising and
reading. He is an avid NBA fan and hopes to one day build on his career as a professional
basketball player.
DAVID MIKHAIL
David was born in Larnaca, Cyprus, but raised in Egypt in an Egyptian-American household.
From his early childhood, his family lived on the north coast, west of Alexandria, with Bedouin
landowners as neighbors. Later, David attended an American high school in Alexandria. The
stark dichotomies in his early environment helped to shape his ability to adapt to and identify
with cultural and socioeconomic diversity.
David graduated with honors from Wake Forest University, majoring in business with a
finance concentration and a minor in Middle Eastern studies. Already fluent in Egyptian
Arabic, he studied French in high school and began studying classical Arabic in college.
After graduation, David returned to Egypt and began working in equity research at Beltone
Financial, a leading investment bank in the Middle East. He covered regional telecoms,
industrials, and financials, and eventually took charge of the financials team, the largest in
the department, covering about 30 financial institutions across 6 regional markets. He led
the team on multiple European client road shows to pitch the region to global emergingmarket asset managers, including BlackRock, SAC, and T. Rowe Price. During this time, he
also conducted advisory work for public and private commercial banks in Egypt, passed the
three CFA level exams, and continued his classical Arabic studies.
David had the privilege of being in Egypt during the January 2011 revolution that deposed
Hosni Mubarak. This experience greatly deepened his interest in national and regional
politics, political economy, and development economics. He began to contribute to a start-up
think tank based in Cairo as a nonresident fellow, where he worked with the president on
thematic and tailored research for clients in London. The revolution also pushed David
toward activism. He spent nights in Tahrir Square, where he learned to mitigate the effects
of tear gas with Coca Cola.
David loves scuba-diving and literature. He is a rock and jazz enthusiast and enjoys discovering new types of world music.
Lauder Focus: Middle East and Arabic
SARAH MILLAR
Sarah was born and raised in Princeton, New Jersey. The second of four children, she and her
siblings were exposed to different languages and cultures at a young age through au pairs
and grade-school classmates from around the world. Over the course of several years of
Spanish language study in secondary school, she participated in multiple cultural immersion
programs in Spain and South America, where she lived with local families and studied at
local universities.
Eager to improve her cultural and linguistic fluency, Sarah enrolled at Trinity College, where
she majored in Hispanic Studies and International Relations. There, she worked closely
with the Hispanic communities in Hartford, Connecticut, mentoring and tutoring children
of predominantly Puerto Rican and Dominican immigrants in the state’s capital city. She
continued this work during her semester abroad in Barcelona, Spain, where she held an
internship at a nonprofit serving underprivileged immigrant families in the city.
Sarah graduated with honors in Spanish, international relations, and general scholarship
in 2011, and was chosen by her senior thesis advisor to lead a three-month research study
after graduation on Latin American immigration to Spain. Shortly after, she was offered a
Research Analyst position at ConvergEx Group in New York City, where she spent nearly
three years writing daily reports for the ConvergEx Morning Briefing. Covering a wide
range of topics, from student loans to global minimum-wage differentials, her work was
frequently published both online and in print by CNBC, the International Business Times,
and Business Insider, among others.
In her spare time in the city, Sarah volunteered as an ESL instructor at a local Hispanic
community center and as a “foster parent” for a small no-kill animal shelter near her
apartment in Manhattan. She hopes to continue both of these activities during her time at
Wharton/Lauder. Outside her volunteer work, Sarah enjoys any and all exercise and exploring
new music and dining venues.
After Wharton/Lauder, Sarah hopes to work in social enterprise across the globe, with a
primary focus on Latin America.
ANDREW MITCHELL
Andrew was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, and moved to Bozeman, Montana, at age 7.
During his senior year of high school, an exchange program in Kazan ignited his passion
for this Russian region. He vowed to begin studying Russian language and return able to
converse.
In 2003, Andrew enrolled at Wake Forest University, where he earned a Bachelor’s in Political
Science with honors, along with minors in Economics and Russian. Initially planning to
pursue a career in foreign policy, he interned in Senator Max Baucus’s Washington, D.C.,
office in the summer of 2005, researching issues related to the digital television transition,
labor, and foreign policy. He spent the fall semester of his junior year studying in Irkutsk
and St. Petersburg, where he conducted independent primary research on the motivations
and factors behind youth participation in communist organizations. Shortly after graduation
in 2007, he returned to St. Petersburg for further language study on a U.S. State Department
Critical Language Scholarship.
In the fall of 2007, Andrew moved to Washington, D.C., to pursue a Master’s in European
and Eurasian Studies at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International
Affairs. There, he became increasingly interested in the interplay between Russian business
and the state’s political goals. His research centered primarily on Russia’s energy industry—
specifically the effectiveness of Russian natural gas as a political weapon vis-à-vis Ukraine
and the lessons from international energy companies’ experiences operating in the Russian
market.
While studying at GW, Andrew was exposed to the private sector by working for the
Corporate Executive Board (CEB), a best-practices research firm. He spent three years
there, conducting research and advising HR executives at global companies on best practices
related to recruiting, learning & development, and talent management. He enjoyed the
pragmatism of business and the process of problem-solving and crafting strategies. Wanting
to expand beyond HR, he moved to the Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) Washington, D.C.,
office, where he worked on a variety of projects, including procurement, organizational
design, IT, marketing, change management, and retail strategy.
After completing the Wharton/Lauder program, Andrew hopes to pursue a career that
combines his passions for business and Russia. Specifically, he hopes to return to BCG to
focus on the supply chain and operations in the former Soviet space.
Outside work, Andrew is an avid skier. He also enjoys golfing, travelling, and keeping up on
current events.
RIZWAN NAVEED
Rizwan was born and raised in Lahore, Pakistan. Keen to explore other cultures, he took his
first international flight and subsequent foray into life abroad in Singapore at age 18.
At the National University of Singapore (NUS), Rizwan majored in electrical engineering.
Outside the classroom, he represented NUS at varsity competitions as a member of the English
debating team and also served as a director of the engineering club, where he established the
school’s first engineering newsletter. During this time, he completed internships at ABB (in
power technologies) and Accenture.
Rizwan joined the Accenture office in Singapore after graduation and specialized in analytics
and financial reporting through globally oriented roles. He focused primarily on the resources
and telecommunication industries, supporting clients in large-scale transformation
programs. In a recent assignment at an industry-leading mining company, he helped the
client successfully execute three divestments of petroleum, coal, and base-metals assets,
coordinating finance activities with teams in Singapore, Melbourne, London, and Houston.
During an international engagement in Indonesia, working directly with the CFO’s office,
he helped a national Telco rewire its financial consolidation and reporting functions. At the
same time, he also developed basic skills in Bahasa, which he hopes to improve in the future.
Outside his main roles, Rizwan has advised regional engagements in an expert capacity,
contributed to new project wins, and established a global mining-industry learning program.
Based on his performance, he was promoted early and rated first in his peer group in the
country and among the top 5% in the firm globally.
Rizwan speaks fluent English, Urdu, and Punjabi. His multinational workplace experiences
and passion for travel inculcated in him a desire to learn a new language. Inspired by the
French movie Amélie, he taught himself to speak French in just two years, starting with
podcasts on his daily commute. A visit to France further strengthened his resolve and, with
the help of francophone media and patient French friends, he now speaks with conversational
fluency.
Rizwan is a self-taught and avid guitar player. Starting from modest performances in high
school, he has since performed at university amphitheaters and charity and corporate
venues as the lead guitarist of the Accenture band Overtime. He hopes to form new groups
at Wharton/Lauder. He also enjoys weightlifting, cricket, and French movies.
EVA NIXON
Eva grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, gaining early international exposure while visiting
her grandfather in Guadalajara, Mexico; but a high-school semester spent in a public school
in Normandy, France, and summers spent in Barcelona, Spain, truly sparked her passion
for culture, history, and language. To deepen her foreign-language expertise, she attended
Middlebury College, where she majored in international studies, with concentrations in
German and European history.
During her junior year, Eva spent a month in Bordeaux living with a French family and
externing on a vineyard in the Haut Médoc before enrolling at the Johannes-Gutenberg
Universität in Mainz, Germany, for a semester. Discovering her growing interest in the
interactions between policy, business, and history, she returned to write her thesis on the
effects of Anglo-French foreign policy on the development of the Bordeaux wine market
prior to 1855, for which she received high honors.
After graduating in 2009, Eva attended the Tuck Business Bridge Program to gain a basic
understanding of business before joining HighQuest Partners, a boutique strategy consulting
firm serving global operating companies and investors in the food, agribusiness, and biofuels
sector. As a senior analyst, Eva’s projects covered the global value chain for multinational
clients, but she focused primarily on the investing practice, through which she developed
a deep understanding of the economics and competitive landscape of global agribusiness.
In 2011, Eva joined AEW Capital Management, a global diversified real-estate investment
firm, to help build an investment platform for U.S. farmland. There, she supported senior
staff in developing the investment strategy and capital raising, while also leading the
due-diligence process for new investments. Intrigued by the impact of infrastructure on
global agribusiness, she transitioned to the real-estate acquisitions team in early 2013 to
develop greater expertise in evaluating real-estate investments.
In her spare time, Eva enjoys fly-fishing, skiing, and hiking and maintains an active leadership
role with Middlebury’s alumni association. A big foodie, she loves to cook and learn more
about wine. Always eager to visit new places and explore new cultures, she is proficient in
French, German, and Spanish.
At Wharton/Lauder, Eva aspires to increase her interdisciplinary business expertise, hone
her foreign-language fluency through the German program, and leverage both to develop
multinational management skills applicable across many industries.
CHRISTOPHER MOTT OWEN
Chris was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. Childhood travels
across Europe and Asia sparked his fascination for cultures, which continues to this day.
During summers in high school, he participated in exchanges in China, Japan, and Thailand.
He attended Tufts University, majoring in economics and German.
Chris decided to study the German language because of a desire to blend his interests in
cars, design, and business and pursued a career in the automotive industry. A year abroad at
Tübingen University, located in the heart of Germany’s car industry, confirmed his calling
and affinity for German culture.
After graduation, Chris joined the Volkswagen Group’s management training program in the
U.S. This two-year-long experience focused on financial services and rotated him through
roles as diverse as answering customer service calls and underwriting dealership mortgages.
Ultimately, the CFO invited him to Germany to learn how U.S. operations fit into the larger
context of VW’s business globally.
After returning to the U.S., Chris worked in sales operations, acting as a liaison between the
Audi brand and the financial-services company. During this time, he created the business
case and subsequently project-managed the development of the U.S. company’s first
fleet-leasing platform. He also spearheaded the development of Ducati Financial Services.
Most recently, he became a financial-planning controller, forecasting the results from the
Volkswagen Group’s U.S. lease and loan portfolio.
While at Wharton/Lauder, Chris looks forward to gaining a deeper understanding of the
current and future needs of emerging markets. He loves to cook and enjoys art, film, and the
growing sport of dragon boating.
ANDRES PANZA
Andres was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. When he was five months old, his parents
moved the family to Bethesda, Maryland, for their work at the National Institutes of Health.
Andres grew up in Maryland. His interest in Latin America developed from his frequent
trips to Argentina to visit his relatives, most of whom still live there.
Andres graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2008, majoring in philosophy,
politics, and economics. His passion for the region led him to take courses on Latin American
politics and business Spanish. He discovered his interest in finance during an internship in
UBS’s Private Wealth Management division.
After graduation, Andres spent three years as an Analyst at Strategic Investment Group, an
investment-management firm in Arlington, Virginia. There he was responsible for managing
institutional client portfolios invested across global-asset classes. After his first year, he
was promoted to Private Equity and Real Estate Analyst and focused solely on private
equity and real-estate-fund investments. During this time, he also passed the CFA exams
and is currently a Chartered Financial Analyst. Andres then joined The Carlyle Group’s U.S.
real-estate group in Washington, D.C. As an Associate, he was responsible for screening
and evaluating new investment opportunities, conducting due diligence, determining capital
structures, presenting investment-evaluation materials, and executing transactions. He
was also involved in over $200 million of real-estate transactions and managed roughly $1.7
billion of real-estate investments.
At Wharton/Lauder, Andres looks forward to mastering his Spanish, forming an extensive
Latin American network, and developing the leadership and management skills necessary to
pursue a career in international finance.
In his free time, Andres enjoys travelling, cooking, playing golf and tennis, skiing, cycling,
and watching sports. He is also an avid Washington Redskins fan. In addition, he has also
immersed himself in community service. He worked at a soup kitchen in Posadas, Argentina,
while tutoring the community’s children in the afternoon. He also served as the director of
the budget and finance committee for Bike to the Beach, an organization that raises funds
for Autism Speaks, and has served on the Junior Gala Board for SOME, an organization that
serves the homeless in Washington, D.C.
MICHAEL PARELES
Born in Irvington, New York, Michael developed his passion for other cultures in high
school, when he studied Japanese and received a scholarship from the Japanese Ministry
of Education to travel to Asia and live with a family in Okinawa, Japan. Upon entering the
University of Chicago, he started studying Mandarin and researching Chinese labor rights
and ethnic minority issues. He led a campaign to compel the university’s administration to
divest from companies that supported the genocide in Darfur, Sudan, securing endorsements
from members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives and a resolution by the
Chicago City Council.
After graduating with honors from UChicago with a degree in Chinese history, Michael
continued his research on economic development for Muslim-Chinese ethnic minorities in
Beijing and Xinjiang on a Fulbright Scholarship from the U.S. State Department. As part of
his research, he studied Uyghur and coached Air Kazak, a group of Chinese-Kazakh students
at the Central University of Nationalities, to win the 2008 Chinese National Ultimate Frisbee
championship.
Michael returned to the U.S. on the eve of President Barack Obama’s election. He started his
work in agriculture as a financial analyst on the Meatpacking Research Team at the United
Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) in Washington, D.C. There, he
established the union’s China Research Program, developing UFCW’s Chinese sourcing and
international-trade strategies, drafting policy documents on Chinese currency reform and
trade tariffs, and conducting financial analyses of American and Chinese protein companies.
In 2011, Michael returned to Beijing on a Blakemore Fellowship to continue his studies at
the Inter-University Program for Advanced Chinese Studies at Tsinghua University. He then
joined the U.S. Meat Export Federation’s Beijing office in the summer as their Manager for
Trade and Business Development. In this capacity, he represented and advised U.S. red-meat
companies such as Cargill, Tyson, and Smithfield, most notably supporting the American
delegation during bilateral trade talks on U.S. beef access to China, and helping to gain
regulatory approval for the acquisition of Smithfield, the world’s largest pork company, by
Shuanghui, China’s largest pork company. More recently Michael made his Chinese television
debut, appearing as a contestant on FeiChengWuRao, China’s most popular dating show.
After Wharton/Lauder, Michael will be pursuing a career in agriculture-focused investment.
One day he plans to travel from Beijing to Cape Town by motorcycle.
ZACHARY QUEEN
Zach was born near Los Angeles, California, but grew up in the greater Seattle, Washington,
area. In high school he excelled in math, the sciences, and Spanish. After his first year of
study at Brigham Young University (BYU), he took a two-year leave of absence to work in
Eastern Ukraine, where he learned to speak Russian. There, he discovered a passion for
cultures and languages. Upon returning to BYU, he continued to study Russian and Eastern
Europe. He graduated with a double major in Russian language and Middle Eastern studies
and Arabic.
Throughout college, Zach was an officer in the Slavic Language Club and in the Middle
Eastern Studies and Arabic Program. After a summer in Amman, Jordan, he looked for other
opportunities to return to the Middle East. After graduation in 2008, he received a fellowship
to spend a year at the Center for Arabic Studies Abroad, and was part of the first group to
study in Damascus, Syria.
Upon returning to Seattle, Zach was hired into the Risk Management department of
Expeditors International. While he enjoyed working with offices around the globe and was
able to use some of his language skills, he looked for an opportunity to move abroad again.
In 2011, he was hired as a contractor for the Regional Security Office in the U.S. Embassy
in Moscow, Russia. There he worked primarily with the Russian staff, addressing security
issues. In 2013, he was selected to relocate to Sochi, Russia, to assist in setting up a temporary
government facility to support U.S. citizens and businesses that would be in that city for the
2014 Olympic and Paralympic games.
Outside work, Zach enjoys soccer, running, and reading.
TIM RACINE
Tim spent his childhood in south Orange County, California. Early on, he developed a passion
for foreign languages, focusing primarily on French, which he often practiced with his
grandfather. His fascination with languages grew into a study of international business and
politics and involvement in the Model United Nations program in high school.
Tim’s interest in large-infrastructure engineering and design projects prompted him to earn
a Bachelor of Science and eventually a Master of Science in Civil Engineering as a Regent’s
and Chancellor’s Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. During this time, he
also directed the UC Berkeley student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers,
helping to earn the chapter the distinguished Governor’s Award.
After graduation, Tim spent a summer leading a study to explore the economic viability
of sustainability consulting services for Colliers International’s real-estate offices in Sofia,
Bulgaria, and Tirana, Albania. He leveraged his knowledge of building-system engineering
and energy-usage characteristics to engage professionals throughout Bulgaria and Albania
on the topic of energy and resource-efficient building.
Following his work with Colliers, Tim launched his career in construction-project
management, working as a general contractor to build the new $1.5 billion UCSF Benioff
Children’s Hospital in San Francisco, California. He led DPR Construction’s specialty
engineering team to coordinate and build the new hospital’s imaging and radiology suites,
valued at over $750 million, maintaining cost and schedule objectives throughout the
four-and-a-half-year project.
In 2010, paralleling his work at DPR Construction, Tim took on a role as the Construction
Team Lead for building a new multiservice health clinic for the Bayonnais Valley community
in northwestern Haiti. This project afforded him powerful insights into the complex inner
workings of the Haitian building industry and helped fuel his interest in business education
at Wharton/Lauder.
Tim passed his engineering and seismic certification and currently holds a California
state license as a professional civil engineer. Recreationally, he enjoys backpacking in the
California wilderness and recently summited Mt. Whitney via the Mountaineer’s Route. He
is also an aviation enthusiast and enjoys tennis, sailing, and playing the violin and guitar.
CAITLIN RYAN
Caitlin was born and raised in Connecticut, but was introduced to foreign cultures at a young
age, as she spent many summers with relatives in Killarney, Ireland. This early exposure to
a new culture sparked her love for travel.
Determined to further pursue her interest in and develop a deeper understanding of foreign
relations, Caitlin attended Georgetown University, where she majored in international
security studies and received a certificate in Islam and Muslim-Christian understanding.
She spent a semester abroad studying at the Universidad de Complutense in Madrid, Spain,
where she developed a passion for the Spanish culture and language. Upon her return, she
continued to pursue her interest in foreign languages by studying Portuguese.
After graduation, Caitlin worked briefly in Arlington, Virginia, for Raytheon, a major U.S.
defense contractor, as an International Strategy Analyst focused on business development
in Asia and Latin America. She then spent more than three years at Ernst & Young in New
York City, where she worked in the Financial Services Advisory Office, concentrating on
regulatory compliance issues. She is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS),
and has worked on projects for many multinational financial services clients covering a
variety of regulatory issues.
In her free time, Caitlin enjoys reading, running, watching Georgetown basketball, and
travelling. She looks forward to new adventures as part of the Wharton/Lauder community.
DAVID BRIAN SARDI
David was born and raised in Cali, Colombia, and moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, in 2006 to
attend Tulane University, becoming part of the first graduating class post-Hurricane Katrina.
He majored in international relations and linguistics and supplemented his coursework by
serving as a teaching assistant in Spanish, French, and social sciences for 20 hours a week
at underserved public schools in New Orleans. In the summer of 2008, he traveled to Italy
to intern with the U.S. Embassy in Rome and then studied abroad in Paris during his junior
year. His multicultural background, coupled with his educational experiences, led him to
become passionate about global issues and intercultural communication.
After graduation, David accepted a position in the Afghanistan portfolio at Development
Alternatives, Inc., an industry-leading international development contractor focused
primarily on USAID contracts around the world. He was later promoted to Logistics
Coordinator for the Trans-Sahara Security Symposium project funded by the Department
of Defense, a program meant to educate high-level civil/military officials in West Africa
on socioeconomic solutions to security issues. In this role, he coordinated all aspects of
conference logistics across the region and traveled to Nigeria and Burkina Faso to execute
the events.
In 2013, David became an associate for the private-sector development directorate of the
Africa region. He served in a project-management capacity for various private-sector
projects, including the Zimbabwe Agricultural Competitiveness Program (Zim ACP) and
an economic development program in Nigeria funded by the Chevron Corporation. In this
role, he coordinated multifunctional teams in the home office and in the field to ensure each
project met and surpassed project deliverables while complying with client regulations. In
the summer of 2013, he was selected as the primary facilitator for the fourth annual Zim
ACP work-planning session, a position in which he led a team of 20 technical and operational
specialists in Zimbabwe through a weeklong conference that received the highest overall
rating by participants in the project’s history.
David is a native speaker of English and Spanish and an advanced-level speaker of French
and Italian. He is learning Portuguese through the Lauder program. He is an avid reader,
enjoys dancing and teaching salsa, and commonly seeks out extreme sports/activities such
as skydiving, waterfall-climbing, and obstacle courses like Tough Mudder.
DREW SOLOSKI
Drew was born and raised in eastern Iowa, about 30 miles west of the Mississippi River. His
rural upbringing inspired a thirst to explore the world beyond his home state—and country.
As a child, he dreamed of visiting distant countries and exploring new cultures.
As a student in the University of Iowa’s Honors Program, Drew explored his international
interests, studying Mandarin Chinese and spending a full academic year in Nanjing and
Beijing, China. His experiences abroad exposed him to the dynamic growth occurring in East
Asia and inspired his interest to explore the region further. After graduation, he returned to
Asia, first as a Fulbright Scholar in South Korea and then as a graduate research student in
Hong Kong. These experiences provided him with a foundation for his professional growth
in international business.
Following three years in Asia, Drew returned to the U.S. and served as an Economic
Researcher at the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Washington, D.C. There he worked
with Korean diplomats, the Korean Ambassador, and lobbyists to plan and execute political
strategies on Capitol Hill that supported Congressional approval of the U.S.-Korea Free
Trade Agreement.
After spending over a year engaging Congressional representatives on trade legislation,
Drew left the Korean Embassy to join the Albright Stonebridge Group, a strategy consulting
firm chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and National Security Advisor
Samuel Berger. There, he served as a Director on the China Practice, where he leveraged
his understanding of governance structures, regulatory regimes, and the business and
investment environment in China to create and implement government-relations strategies
for Fortune 500 companies. He worked primarily on the retail, information-technology,
and healthcare industries, advising companies on business-expansion strategies, including
assessing and managing risk and resolving commercial, political, and regulatory challenges
in China.
Drew enjoys cooking, playing music and sports, travelling, and exploring new cultures. He
is a proud Iowan, who, whenever he has the opportunity, enjoys educating people about his
home state and upbringing. At Wharton/Lauder, he hopes to develop a better understanding
of how to scale global businesses and to make them more “local” in countries around the
world. He also hopes to improve not only his Mandarin, but also his Korean along the way.
TANIA STEYN
Tania was born and raised in Pretoria, South Africa, and is fluent in both Afrikaans and
English. Her family moved several times, finally settling in Ottawa, Canada, where Tania fell
in love with French language and literature.
After high school, Tania chose to pursue a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the Sprott
School of Business at Carleton University, majoring in both finance and marketing. During
this time, she had the opportunity to study for a year at l’École Supérieure de Commerce de
Rennes, in Rennes, France, where she focused on international business and French. She also
had the opportunity to represent the Sprott School on various international business-case
competition teams and, along with her team, placed first in Canada and third globally at the
John Molson Undergraduate Case Competition.
Hoping to gain a broad range of experiences before graduation, Tania completed several
internships, which included working in project management on the restoration of the
Canadian Parliament buildings and in business strategy for an NGO in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
During her last year at the Sprott School, Tania was the fifth employee of an Ottawa tech
start-up, became hooked on start-up culture, and decided to join the company full time after
graduation. During the three and a half years she spent there, she worked in both B2C and
B2B marketing, helping the company rebrand after a pivot in its business strategy and then
grow its brand presence across North America. She also held roles in recruiting and culture,
helping the company grow to over 50 employees.
Pursuing her interest in social impact, Tania joined the team that initiated and launched the
Ottawa chapter of the Sunday Soup Network, an organization that puts together micro-grant
participatory dinners that seek to provide funding to nontraditional, socially minded projects
and to bring together the community to engage with and support these projects.
Outside work, Tania enjoys reading, travelling, photography, theater, and tea. She is also
exploring cooking, running, and yoga.
At Wharton/Lauder, Tania hopes to build on her past experiences with cutting-edge business
expertise to delve further into social innovation and entrepreneurship.
KATHLEEN SUN
Kathleen was born and raised in the Bay Area of northern California. At age 15, she moved
to Singapore, where she attended an international high school. This experience abroad was
pivotal in fueling her passion for cross-cultural learning, awareness, and exchange.
Kathleen graduated from Princeton University with a major in history and certificates in
East Asian studies and European cultural studies. Interested in honing her language skills
to deepen her exploration of East Asian history and culture, she took Mandarin, classical
Chinese, and Japanese courses throughout college, including an intensive summer program
at Beijing Normal University. Following a semester abroad at the University of Oxford, she
spent a summer as a consulting intern at the Beijing office of Octagon, a leading international
sports and entertainment marketing firm.
After graduation, Kathleen worked for over two years at Deloitte Consulting LLP in
Washington, D.C., where she served various public- and private-sector clients. Experience
working on Deloitte’s first-ever joint venture, involving both the firm’s commercial and
federal practices and a Fortune 500 client to launch an innovation incubator to develop and
bring to market new technologies, sparked her interest in public-private partnerships to
address social-sector challenges.
To better understand how public-private partnerships can support innovation and entrepreneurship, Kathleen joined the New York City Economic Development Corporation, New
York City’s primary economic-growth engine, under the Bloomberg administration.
Collaborating with a multitude of city agencies, nonprofits, private investors, developers,
and other stakeholders, she helped launch two small business incubators and two loan funds
for low-income entrepreneurs, activate long-term vacant lots with pop-up retail markets in
an underserved neighborhood, and manage a city-wide business-innovation competition. To
promote the city’s start-up ecosystem, draw international investment, and foster economic
diversification, she also worked on initiatives with stakeholders across the fashion, media/
tech, and bioscience industries.
Kathleen speaks Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, and some Japanese. Beyond her professional
interests, she loves to travel, watch films, see live music and theater, read, cycle, and explore
the culture of food.
BALRAJ VIRDI
Bobby, a third-generation Tanzanian of Indian descent, was born and raised in Dodoma,
Tanzania. He moved to London, England, at age 14 to further his education.
Bobby graduated from the London School of Economics in 2007 with a Bachelor of Science
in Economics. While there, he also worked as a broker for a Lloyd’s of London insurance
brokerage, where he was promoted several times and managed a group of graduate trainees
while still in school.
After graduation, Bobby joined H.I.G. Capital, a U.S. middle-market private equity fund
that had just raised its first European buyout fund. His role there was to establish the
firm’s European deal-origination efforts by developing a large network of relationships
with companies and advisors in the middle market and to effectively screen and advance
opportunities that were relevant to the fund’s strategy.
To develop his skillset as an investor, Bobby sought out a position that would give him M&A
execution experience. In 2010, he joined Harris Williams & Co., a leading U.S. middle-market
investment bank, as its first full-time junior European hire. The bank was in the process of
establishing a local European presence and, over the course of the next two years, Bobby
worked on many of its landmark M&A engagements, including its first-ever European
sell-side and buy-side transactions.
Through coincidence as much as his desire to work and learn in smaller professional
environments, Bobby helped to successfully establish two of the best-known U.S.
middle-market brands in Europe. In both cases he joined firms that were still in temporary
office space and building out teams with limited local brand recognition and track records.
In 2012, Bobby joined Rubicon Partners, a private equity investment firm focused on complex
industrial acquisitions in Western Europe and North America. As a result of Rubicon’s
hands-on model and small team size, Bobby held a number of diverse roles—from leading
new acquisition origination and execution for the firm to working with portfolio companies
in strategic and operational capacities.
Bobby intends to use his time at Wharton/Lauder to expand his skills as an international
investor by developing his network and his understanding of global business. He is
passionate about East Africa’s development opportunities and eventually would like to use
his experiences to help build businesses of scale in the region.
WILLIAM WACHTER
Will was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and attended high school and college in New Jersey.
He graduated from Princeton University with honors in economics and certificates (minors)
in finance and East Asian studies. As an undergraduate, he studied abroad in Beijing and
Hong Kong. He also founded the Princeton chapter of the College Fed Challenge competition.
After graduation, Will spent a year studying Mandarin at the International Chinese Language
Program at National Taiwan University in Taipei. He went on to work in Chicago and Shanghai
before joining the U.S. Department of State as a Foreign Service Officer.
Most recently, Will served as Acting Conservation Unit Chief at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing,
where he led a team of Foreign Service Officers and local Chinese staff. In this role, he
analyzed Chinese policies in the health, energy, and environmental sectors and provided
advice to U.S. government officials, private-sector representatives, and NGOs. He initiated
coverage of China’s health-care reforms, interviewing experts and analyzing annual statistics
to determine the opportunities and risks posed to U.S. interests from the expansion of
public-health insurance and mandated reductions in drug prices. He applied his quantitative
background to evaluate Beijing’s air-quality data and examine the financial impediments
facing government incentive schemes designed to promote energy conservation. Will
received three Meritorious Honor Awards, including one for his work with the Embassy’s
Consular Section in the development of a new system that significantly reduced the time and
effort necessary for processing visa-validation studies.
Outside work, Will served as the volunteer coordinator for entry-level Foreign Service
Officers, utilizing grant funding from the J. Kirby Simon Foreign Service Trust to construct
a computer lab for the children of migrant laborers living in Beijing. Based on knowledge
he amassed from open online courses, he programmed an iPhone app that reported the air
quality data from different monitors in and around Beijing. In addition, he developed a
market strategy for a crowd-sourced educational platform as part of the winning team at the
Beijing Tech Hive hackathon in 2013.
In his free time, Will practices Krav Maga and enjoys travelling, trying new cuisines, and
attempting to replicate them in his kitchen at home. He has travelled around Southeast Asia
and has started learning Portuguese in an effort to complement his Mandarin abilities and
gain a better understanding of other emerging markets.
SHANI SCHARFSTEIN WANGENHEIM
Shani was born and raised in Israel. She spent two years in South Africa before returning
to Israel to start primary school. From a young age, she was charmed by the worlds of
innovation and leadership, which led her to join the Young Entrepreneurs Program at her
school. She was elected CEO and, with her fellow classmates, participated in innovation
competitions in Israel.
At age 18, Shani entered the Israeli Defense Forces and spent two years as a behavioral
diagnostician in the Air Force Flight Academy, working with executive commanders to
identify and classify the next generation of pilots. Always seeking opportunities to build her
skillset, she developed a feedback-and-control tool to better address the Academy cadets’
needs and to boost their performance.
Passionate about cultures and languages, Shani spent two years working and travelling
around the globe. She worked in London, at a ski resort on the French Alps, and in Turkey.
Before pursuing her bachelor degree at Tel Aviv University, majoring in economics and
East Asia studies, she went on her big trek to Central America, travelling through all seven
countries of the sub-continent in six months.
During her studies at Tel Aviv University, Shani served as the cultural and international
affairs coordinator at the Student Union, planning and executing social and cultural events
for the university. She also participated in international delegations to Sweden and South
Korea and organized an international delegation to Israel.
After graduation, Shani moved to China to work for Infinity Group, an Israeli-Chinese VC,
evaluating investments in Israeli start-ups and building reorganization and streamlining
plans for Chinese portfolio companies. In 2012, she joined Stem Cell Medicine, an
international pharmaceutical company developing innovative solutions based on stem cells,
as a Senior Associate. Leading the company’s business-development efforts in Asia and
Europe, she created novel growth opportunities for the company as it sought to establish
strategic partnerships. Spending a week every other month in China enabled her to improve
her Chinese language skills and build her professional network in multiple cities across the
country.
Shani has travelled to 36 countries and speaks Hebrew, English, Mandarin Chinese, French,
and Spanish. She enjoys snow-boarding, scuba-diving, cooking, and volunteering with
various organizations, from leading consulting projects for nonprofits to food collection and
fundraising for charity.
HANNAH YUDKIN
Hannah was born in Vienna, Austria, to Russian-speaking parents from Riga, Latvia, who
moved to the U.S. before her first birthday. She studied French in middle school, while
simultaneously discovering a passion for the arts. During her sophomore year of high school,
she spent the summer studying art history at the American University of Paris. During her
senior year, she worked at Exit Art Gallery, an alternative art space in New York City, where
she witnessed the power of art on a global level.
Melding her passion for art, culture, and global affairs, Hannah double-majored in art history
and political science at Barnard College. She also spent a semester studying art history and
French politics at Reid Hall in Paris. Her undergraduate thesis explored exhibition spaces
in Moscow in the 1970s and touched upon issues such as the perception of art in Eastern
Europe under communism. She graduated cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and with honors in
both majors.
Hannah expanded her work experience in the art world with internships at The Jewish
Museum, the David Nolan Gallery, and Artforum. As an ad hoc project manager at Christie’s
Auction House, she became fascinated by art and its connection to business. Developing
the September 2009 marketing brochure for Christie’s mid-level clients and executing the
marketing strategies for five specialist departments showed her how critical businesssupport roles are to an art institution’s success. She realized she would need to become
involved in the business side of art to make a difference in the art world.
After graduation in 2011, Hannah joined Orion Consultants to expand her business
knowledge and gain a deeper understanding of the financial-services industry. As a senior
consultant, she worked with several global investment banks to provide strategic counsel
on their fixed-income and FX businesses. Her work included identifying potential revenue
opportunities and providing analysis on market penetration and resource allocation.
Becoming increasingly passionate about emerging markets, she also had the opportunity to
lead Orion’s U.S. & European EM Studies.
At Wharton/Lauder, Hannah hopes to find her way into the intersection of art and business
while also improving her French. She is a classically trained violinist and writes for
Hyperallergic, a New York-based art blog. She speaks Russian, French, and some German
and loves live music, skiing, good food, and travel.
XIAOXI ZHANG
Born into a diplomatic family in Beijing, China, at age 12 Xiaoxi travelled with her parents
around Europe, where she first developed her multicultural awareness and passion for
different cultures.
Xiaoxi decided to pursue her undergraduate studies in Hong Kong, a city where eastern and
western cultures meet. She majored in electronic commerce and graduated with a first-in-class
honor. While in college, she broadened her perspective on world affairs and learned how to
reach consensus among different values through exchange programs, back-packing trips,
and heated debates with other international students. She was also active in charity work.
She travelled to the Philippines with a team of volunteers to help provide dental services and
to teach in local primary schools. She also organized a charity donation site on the web that
resulted in donations of more than 3,000 pieces of equipment and supplies from the public to
help rebuild a school damaged in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.
After graduation, Xiaoxi joined the management trainee program of China Construction
Bank (Asia), formerly Bank of America (Asia) and now a subsidiary of China Construction
Bank, the second-largest bank in China. There, she performed rotational roles in different
departments, ranging from Consumer Banking and Financial Management to Electronic
Banking. Pursuing her curiosity about international trade and her passion for exploring
different cultures, she joined the Commercial Banking department. As part of the team
that focused on the international-trade business, she provided financial advice and products
to large Chinese corporations from various industries to facilitate their cross-border
transactions and global expansion. While funding their trades and securing their supply
chain, she also worked with each company’s top management team to help them overcome
obstacles during the globalization process, including business restructures, loan defaults,
and disputes with foreign-trade partners.
A native speaker of Mandarin, Xiaoxi also speaks fluent Cantonese. She joined Wharton/
Lauder to pursue her passion for global issues in a close-knit international community. In her
spare time, she enjoys travelling, participating in charity work, photography, scuba-diving,
and appreciating different cuisines and food cultures around the world.
JOSH ZHOU
Josh was born in Fuzhou, China, and at age 9 moved to New York City with his family.
At Williams College, Josh majored in economics, with a focus on international studies, and
graduated cum laude. During his sophomore year, he studied at the National Taiwan Normal
University in Taipei and served as a research associate at the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences (CASS) in Beijing. At CASS, he worked on antitrust regulations and M&A control
policies. Studying and working in Asia further ignited his professional interest in the region.
After graduation, Josh joined Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Leveraged Finance Group as
an Analyst in New York City. His role included structuring and financing numerous leveraged
buyout transactions. He was also actively involved in the group’s recruiting, training, and
mentoring efforts. During his two years there, he received two promotions, first to Senior
Analyst and then to Associate.
Wanting to gain additional exposure to the dynamic economies of Asia, Josh relocated to
Singapore to join Baring Private Equity Asia, a leading private equity firm with a history of
more than 15 years of successfully investing in Asia. He frequently travelled to Hong Kong,
Shanghai, and Australia to examine both leveraged-buyout and growth-equity opportunities.
Many of the investments he worked on had a cross-border angle, and he frequently sought
creative ways to access the nascent Asian leveraged finance market to generate greater
returns for investors. A particularly valuable learning experience involved purchasing a
UK-based company, integrating it with an existing Asia-based portfolio company, and then
ultimately listing the entire entity on the New York Stock Exchange.
Josh is an avid sports fan and enjoys running, squash, tennis, and hiking. Having been to
World Series games during the Yankees’ 26th and 27th championships, he hopes to witness
the Yankees’ 28th championship during his time at Wharton/Lauder.
BIANCA FARHAT CARDOSO ZICCARELLI
Bianca was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil. As the daughter of a sociologist, her innate
inquisitiveness and passion for exploring different cultures were encouraged by her family
from a very young age.
The first time Bianca traveled alone was at age 14, when she spent a month at a summer
camp in the U.S. This experience deepened her understanding of cultural similarities
and differences, which was so enriching that she sought to do it again through exchange
programs to Australia during high school and the UK during college. While living in England,
she took advantage of her scholar vacations to back-pack across more than 15 countries in
Europe, visiting friends she had met during earlier international experiences.
In 2009, Bianca earned her Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Fundação
Getulio Vargas, a leading business school in Brazil. After graduation, she accepted a position
as an Analyst in Citibank’s Investment Banking division, where she drafted life-altering
M&A and equity transactions for the senior managers and shareholders of Brazil’s most
important companies.
Even though she enjoyed the challenges and exposure of her investment-banking career,
Bianca decided to leave Citibank to engage in a more entrepreneurial experience by joining
Editora Magia de Ler, a start-up publisher in the children’s literature market. During her two
years there, she immersed herself in an alternative reality, developing original approaches
to reading content and facing the struggles Brazilian entrepreneurs go through to secure
funding.
Following her first-hand exposure to the gap that exists in Brazil between ideas and financing,
Bianca decided to combine her investment-banking and start-up experiences to procure a
job in the intermediary investment market. Consequently, she joined Patria, a Blackstoneassociated Brazilian private equity fund, where she played an active role in approving the
investment in Junior Alimentos (a producer of sauces) and in the company’s turnaround
from near bankruptcy to a benchmark portfolio investment.
Thereafter, Bianca decided to explore the Brazilian venture capital market by joining
Santander’s proprietary infrastructure fund, where she coordinated (on the Brazilian front)
global efforts to facilitate a private placement of Santander’s renewable-energy portfolio.
In her free time, Bianca enjoys travelling, dancing, going to the gym, and reading.
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
Non-Discrimination Policy Statement
The University of Pennsylvania values diversity and seeks talented students,
faculty and staff from diverse backgrounds. The University of Pennsylvania does
not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity,
religion, creed, national or ethnic origin, citizenship status, age, disability, veteran
status or any other legally protected class status in the administration of its admissions,
financial aid, educational or athletic programs, or other University-administered
programs or in its employment practices. Questions or complaints regarding this
policy should be directed to the Executive Director of the Office of Affirmative Action
and Equal Opportunity Programs, Sansom Place East, 3600 Chestnut Street, Suite 228,
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6106; or (215) 898-6993 (Voice) or (215) 898-7803 (TDD).

Class of 2016 Biographies - Lauder Institute

Transcription

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