Student Leadership and Ethics Board
The purpose of the center's Student Leadership and Ethics Board is to foster a culture and safeguard a tradition of principled leadership throughout the Columbia Business School community. The Board fulfills its purpose by developing, implementing and monitoring programs that cultivate leadership, build character and promote ethical decision-making, which, in turn, enable Columbia Business School students to become productive, moral and caring participants in their companies and communities.
Each year, first- and second-year Columbia MBA and EMBA students are selected based on an interest in these areas, demonstrated leadership skills and past academic and work experience.
Working with the faculty, staff, alumni and other students, members of the Leadership and Ethics Board develop, support, organize and market such Center events as high-profile speakers and experiential learning activities. In doing so, Leadership and Ethics Board members have the opportunity to interact closely with distinguished speakers, panelists and professors and to contribute to the MBA experience.
Members of the Leadership and Ethics Board also take part in the Center's faculty dinners and interact with Bernstein Faculty Leaders.
Board Members for 2008 – 2009
Clelia Peters '09 – MBA Co-Chair
Lukas Pieter '09 – MBA Co-Chair
Sophie Romana '08 – EMBA Co-Chair
Daniel Jurow '09 – EMBA Co-Chair
Matthew Balestrieri '09
George Caravias '09
Jennifer Chilton '08
Jim Deasy '09
Isabelle Dufour '09
Walter Haddick '09
Eric Light '09
Gaurav Mittal '09
Sarita Narson '09
Ruchi Patwari '09
Jonathan Perle '09
Lakshmi Potluri '09
Michael Todd Rudsenske '09
Sharon Saroksy '09
Doug Tsang '09
Board Members Biographies
Prior to business school, Matt worked as the Marketing Coordinator for Paragon Industries, a non-profit company providing vocational and work services for individuals with disabilities. He was responsible for all marketing related activities at Paragon as well as growth and development opportunities. Matt has been involved with a number of organizations ranging from environmental advocacy groups to political campaigns at several levels of government. A current Botwinick scholar at Columbia Business School, Matt holds a BS in International Business and Human Resources with an Environmental Ethics minor from Marquette University and is a native of Milwaukee, WI.
George Caravias '09 (EMBA Global)
George Caravias, brings twenty-five years experience in the information technology and telecommunications industries in the United States and internationally. As a Senior Vice President at Calim Private Equity, Caravias is responsible for maximizing the value of an early-stage venture portfolio. Previous work as an entrepreneur included establishment, management and profitable exits of a $240 million Australian telecommunications company, a $10 million web hosting business and turnaround of a software venture. He was also a founding member and elected deputy-chairman of a 120-member national telecommunications association. Caravias holds degrees in engineering from the California Institute of Technology and in mathematics/physics from Whitman College.
Jennifer Chilton '08 (EMBA Global)
Jennifer Chilton is an Associate Partner with IBM Business Consulting Services where she has worked for more than 13 years. She leads the ERP Business Intelligence and Analytics Initiative within IBM's Financial Services Financial Management Practice. Jennifer is originally from Baltimore, Maryland and holds an undergraduate degree in Management Science from Virginia Tech. Jennifer currently resides in Manhattan and enjoys traveling, reading and running, and works closely with a Cancer Research Foundation, Joan's Legacy, in her spare time.
Isabelle Dufour was born and raised in France and lived in Romania in 1990 for one year after the revolution. She started her first two years of undergraduate in Law School in France and finished the last two undergraduate years at Columbia. She earned a BA in Economics and upon graduating, worked in investment banking at Lehman Brothers. After a couple of years in New York, Isabelle joined a private equity fund for one year in London. For the past six months, she has helped her mother run for a seat as Member of Parliament of the European Union on behalf of Romania. Throughout Isabelle’s education and professional experience, she has been exposed to extreme standards of ethics across cultures. She has also been training for the Olympics in Horse Riding and is hoping to qualify for 2012.
Wally has held various sales and marketing positions within the surgical space, including Vice President of Marketing and Eastern Area Vice President of Sales. He is currently leading the U.S. Marketing effort for surgical stapling products in minimally invasive surgery at Covidien. Over the last 16 years, he has taken part in building a $41B conglomerate that became Tyco International, one narrow escape from corporate bankruptcy, plans for a $10B start-up, five house moves, a marathon, and two handsome sons. He has seen the building of a corporate conglomerate under “Deal a Day” Dennis Kozlowski, the design of Corporate Governance under Ed Breen, and the launch of a $10B start up (July 2007) of Covidien under Rich Meelia.
Daniel Jurow '09 – EMBA Co-Chair
Daniel Jurow has worked in digital marketing for nearly a decade, focusing on multichannel and interactive marketing, e-commerce, and digital brand communication. He is currently an Executive Producer at R/GA, a digital advertising agency, leading multipleglobal lines of business for Nike, Inc. Daniel has created campaigns for Nike community-basedprojects such as the Nike Women’s Marathon to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and Cinco de Mile, a 1-mile race in Los Angeles to raise awareness for youth fitness. His experience with these and other efforts around corporate responsibility (NikeResponsibility.com, LetMePlay.com, and his own firm’s charitable projects), and his extensive travel through Southeast Asia, have informed his understanding of the relationship between firm value and societal value, the effect ofindividual character on organizational behavior, and the political and economic influence of media and technology in underserved communities and developing nations. Daniel graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997 with a BA in Biological Basis of Behavior. He is also an accomplished music producer and lives in Brooklyn with his wife, a Bulgarian software developer.
Prior to business school, Eric worked for fuve years at Shell Oil Company in Houston, Texas. During that time, he served for four years as an engineer and one year as a business analyst. As a business analyst, much of Eric's time was spent ensuring the accuracy of information being reported by Shell executives to third party associations. While at Shell, Eric was elected as Chairperson of the Shell Young Employees Community Service Organization. In that role, he led a wide range of activities including volunteering at a food pantry, tutoring at-risk students in low income areas and cleaning up local parks. Eric holds a BE in Chemical Engineering from Vanderbilt University.
Gaurav is a Senior Manager with NB Ventures, a privately held consulting company that specializes in process and procurement consulting services. At Global eProcure, Gaurav is part of the Global Leadership Team responsible for delivering services to strategic clients and supporting Global eProcure’s international growth strategy. He also leads their People Care program to identify and develop managers within the firm. His prior work experience includes stints at the Marsh & McLennan companies and Virtual Self, Inc. During his time in Chicago, Gaurav led the initiation of a Junior Board for the Sue-Duncan Children’s center, an after-school program for inner city youth, and was a board member for the Windy City Open, one of the largest professional Squash tournaments in North America. Gaurav has a B.Sc. in Computer Science and Communications from Denison University.
Sarita Narson '09 (EMBA Global)
Sarita Narson is a Fixed Income Sales Trader at Goldman Sachs and has been working there for nearly four years. Her primary responsibility as a portfolio manager is overseeing over $7 billion in assets of municipal fixed income securities. On a daily basis she trades, liaises with capital markets professionals, participates on conference calls and attends various meetings. Sarita graduated from Emory University in 2002 with a BBA in Finance and Marketing, and has a minor in Russian.
Prior to joining Columbia Business School, Ruchi Patwari spent four years working internationally in the oil and gas sector. While leading onshore and offshore well testing projects as a field engineer with Schlumberger oilfield services, she developed a deep understanding of the ethical issues and the social challenges associated with this domain. Her work took her to countries like France, Yemen, Qatar, Dubai, India and Malaysia, where she realized the ramifications of social-, cultural-, economic- and gender-based divides. She has led various community-improvement endeavors in India and the Middle East. Ruchi initiated the “each one teach one” program in India and organized mid-wife training camps in Yemen to reduce peri-partum mortality. Discussions with her colleagues introduced her to the manifold perspectives on social issues people from different nations and varied economic and social strata hold. Ruchi graduated from IIT Kharagpur with a B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering.
Prior to joining Columbia Business School, Jonathan Perle studied political science and foreign policy as an undergraduate at Tufts University and law at the University of Pennsylvania. After graduation from law school, he worked as a corporate attorney at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP. At the firm, he was in the mergers and acquisitions group and worked on mergers, acquisitions and divestitures of both public and private companies in various industries, including outsourcing, real estate, telecommunications, tax credit syndication, restaurants, music and industrial services.
Clelia Peters '09 – MBA Co-Chair
Before enrolling at Columbia business School, Clelia was a Program Manager at the Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, an NGO network dedicated to monitoring, reporting and responding to violations against children in international armed conflicts. Through her work with Watchlist, Clelia researched and worked directly in a wide variety of countries either actively involved in conflict or in the immediate post-conflict phase, including Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia and Nepal. While at Watchlist, Clelia also worked with members of the UN Security Council to advise on the development of international law related to the protection of children. Prior to this position, Clelia had worked in Southeast Asia providing support to orphanages funded by HOLT International in both Thailand and Vietnam. Clelia currently serves as the President of the Board of Trustees of the dance/theater company Moving Theater. Clelia has a BA in Literature from Yale University and in addition to her native English, speaks French and some very rusty Thai.
Lukas Pieter '09 – MBA Co-Chair
Before enrolling at Columbia Business School, Lukas Pieter gained substantial leadership and operational experience working in the business and nonprofit sectors. He served as the CFO and as a Board Member of Faribault Mills, one of the oldest manufacturing companies in the U.S. In this capacity, he was responsible for directing all financial and IS/IT functions in the company, developing strategy and making recommendations on composition of the management team. Previously, he worked as an investment banker with Goldsmith Agio Helms. At this firm, he participated in the sale, restructuring and business valuation of middle market companies. Lukas is also an active community volunteer. He co-founded the Czech and Slovak Center of Minnesota, an organization over which he later presided. He was a member and advisor of the MN Governor's trade mission to the Czech Republic, and a Board Advisor for Czech Innovation for Global Markets.
Before business school, Lakshmi worked as a healthcare-lifesciences consultant at IBM providing subject matter expertise to the healthcare industry, where she developed an understanding of the ethical and moral dilemmas that exist in this domain. Lakshmi also served on IBM's Invention Evaluation Board, has 14 pending patents and has mentored several first time innovators. Lakshmi is also involved in promoting the importance of women's education and creating awareness against domestic violence. She recently produced a short film aimed at increasing awareness of domestic violence amongst women in India. Lakshmi also enjoys the outdoors and like to travel.
Sophie Romana '08 – EMBA Co-Chair
Before joining a Private Equity fund in New York in 2000, Sophie worked with French non-profit organizations involved in emergency humanitarian relief. She has worked in Rwanda as head of a relief mission to unaccompanied children following the 1994 genocide. She spent two years in Madagascar where she worked as a consultant for various private and public entities. One of her assignments was to assess the efficacy of USAID’s equipment donations on reducing the judgment backlogs in civil and criminal courts. She has particular interest in socially responsible investment, banking and financial regulations in emerging markets and sustainable development in Africa. Sophie holds a Bachelor’s in International Public Law and a Master in Public Law from Université Paris I – Sorbonne.
After beginning my career in Dallas as a CPA at Ernst & Young, Todd moved to New York in 1997 to become a member of Ernst & Young’s Corporate Finance Group. In 1999, he followed a colleague to Merrill Lynch as a Vice President to provide M&A services to the firm’s tax-exempt healthcare clients. While at Merrill Lynch, he also spent time in the firm’s San Francisco and Palo Alto offices as a member of the firm’s Technology Private Placements Group. In 2002, Todd joined Cain Brothers & Company, a boutique investment bank focused exclusively on health care, and today heads the firm’s financial sponsors and private placement efforts as a Managing Director.
Prior to attending Columbia Business School, Sharon was a Senior Consultant with Vantage Partners, a boutique negotiation and relationship management consultancy. At Vantage, she helped Fortune 500 companies negotiate and manage their most critical business relationships. Her work included training and coaching clients on how to effectively communicate difficult issues in the workplace. She also previously worked as an investment banking analyst on both M&A and private finance transactions. Sharon currently serves as the fundraising cochair for the class of 2001 at Dartmouth College, and was a Big Sister and mentor in the Boston area. She holds a BA in Economics from Dartmouth College.
Doug Tsang '09 Columbia/Berkeley-Haas EMBA)
Doug Tsang joined Microsoft Corporation in 1994 after graduating with a degree in electrical engineering at Brown University. He is currently a Development Lead for Office server products working directly with customers and partners. Having traveled to poorer parts of China and India, his belief in education as a means of raising the standard of living is demonstrated in his volunteering in the local school district, and for non-profit organizations in helping local foster children and in school-building in remote Chinese villages. Working in a company with a firm belief and a pervasive culture in giving back to the community, Doug is especially passionate in exploring issues on corporate social responsibility.
