News About You
The Network - April 2012
Eric Altstadter is partner-in-charge of the Long Island office of EisnerAmper LLP and a member of the Firm’s Public Companies Group. He has more than 25 years of experience working with public companies and privately held businesses throughout the country.
He is the editor-in-charge of the Firm’s SEC Trends & Developments publication and was recognized by the Long Island Business News in their 2010 and 2011 editions of Who's Who in Accounting and in their 2010 and 2011 editions of Who's Who in Audits. He is a frequent speaker on accounting, auditing and business topics. He received his B.S. from the University at Buffalo. In addition, he is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants (NYSSCPA). At the NYSSCPA, he has served on the SEC Practice Committee and was recently appointed to the Professional Ethics Committee.
Jennifer Barron Last fall, Jennifer Barron left Blue Shield of California after eight years to take a contract at AAA. She is enjoying the freedom of being a contractor and the challenge of consulting to AAA as they replace their legacy policy administration system. Also, Jennifer and her husband are expecting their first child, a girl, in May.
Craig Bickel, Minneapolis office 1984 – 1985, has joined the W Group (www.thinkwgroup.com) as a principal.
Brad Blacketor, Denver office, Gold Resource Corporation announced that it has hired Brad to become its full time chief financial officer. Gold Resource Corporation is a low-cost gold producer with operations in the southern state of Oaxaca, Mexico. Brad will join Gold Resource Corporation from Bear Creek Mining Corporation where he served as CFO. He has over 30 years of management and financial experience including serving as Vice President, CFO and Secretary for Metallica Resources Inc. for 11 years before he joined Bear Creek Mining. Prior to Metallica, he served as CFO of MinCorp Ltd.
Thomas Bonney, Philadelphia & London Deloitte Office Alum, would like to announce the birth of his second son, Liam Patrick Bonney, born on March 14, 2012 and weighing 7lbs, 11 oz.
Yole R. Caivano, 94, died on Jan. 12 at Franciscan Oaks Health Center in Denville. Born Dec. 16, 1917, in New York City, she graduated from Bay Ridge High School in Brooklyn and later lived in Greenwich Village until 1995, when she moved to Franciscan Oaks Residential Community in Denville. Caivano majored in History at Hunter College in New York where she earned a bachelor's in 1940. She worked as a C.P.A. with Deloitte & Touche in New York City for 36 years retiring in 1986. She had an interest in astronomy, music, the Metropolitan Opera, and loved to dance. She loved to travel and in 1973 she took a cruise to witness the eclipse of the sun, along with several astronauts, and was docked next to Neil Armstrong's family. Yole is survived by many cousins and friends.
Mackenzie Chambers founded Wmbly, Inc, a custom branded platform for premium live and on-demand events. Wmbly works with organizations such as the University of Southern California and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to bring their events online to a worldwide audience, and monetize them with Virtual Passes. http://wmbly.com
Nicole Chan - Nicole left Deloitte Consulting (Technology / Systems Integration) in October 2010 and focused all her efforts on her passion, her wedding photography business. "It has thrived and since then, I've added on three associates, started an internship program as well as launched a wedding film production company (Promessa Films) to complement the photography services. I've flown internationally for weddings and have been published in several wedding magazines and blogs, including The Knot," said Chan.
Tina Chin On January 11, 2012 Tina Chin gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, Kieran McKechnie. He weighed 6 lbs 11 oz and was 20 inches long. Everyone is doing great. Tina and her husband, Liam, happily introducing Kieran sights and sounds of New York City where they live. Tina is an alumna from the Deloitte Boston office.
Gary Cochran is currently a vice president at Hewlett Packard located in Atlanta. He and his wife Nancy are living in Roswell and recently celebrated the wedding of their daughter Christine to Andrew Roberts.
Paul J. Cooper, former senior auditor of the Cincinnati office, is now retired, (State of Florida and United States Army), and enjoying central Florida, Tampa Bay area. He will be leaving April 13th for two weeks visit to India and Nepal.
Cindy Cornell, of Westport, Connecticut, changed her major mid-career and is now a leadership and executive coach and founder of The Hoshin Group (www.hoshingroup.com). Perhaps more important than helping her clients to achieve transformative, measurable results, she helps them to lead happier lives. While she works across industries, she loves professional services and working with entrepreneurs, who appreciate her broad and global business experience which spans both numerous industries and functions. Her financial services clients in particular appreciate her understanding of both the technical and sales focused elements of their business. Her corporate client list includes Merrill Lynch, Univision and Johnson & Johnson, to name a few.
She is a member of the International Coach Federation and is certified in both Executive and Life Coaching by The Neuroleadership Group (formerly Results Coaching Systems) and New York University in addition to her BS in Accounting from Penn State, MBA in Finance/Marketing from NYU and executive education at UPenn/Wharton. Cindy is also an adjunct professor of coaching at New York University. While all that education has played a role in her success, she recognizes that the five years she spent in the audit function in Pittsburgh in the early 1990’s were foundational in her career, teaching valuable interpersonal and project management skills in addition to critical business fundamentals.
She spends her free time chasing her five year old son, Kerry, around coastal Connecticut and would love to reconnect with her former Pittsburgh colleagues as well as to network with alums in the greater NYC area.
Erika Crowell, (Midwest Internal Communications Manager based in the Chicago Office March 2007-- September 2010), was promoted to Vice President at Insidedge, the employee communications consultancy of the Interpublic Group. In her role, Crowell leads engagements and partners with clients at The Dow Chemical Company, Kraft Foods, The Society of Actuaries and Dean Foods to use communication to solve problems and engage employees in support of corporate goals. Press Release: http://www.insidedge.net/insidedge_newsroom.php?ID=27
Gaye Dallas Odom is engaged to Ronnie Knight and the date is set for November 4, 2012. Gaye is the Director of Accounting for Wright, Lindsey & Jennings LLP. Congratulations Gaye and Ronnie.
Andy Davis has had an exciting “dual-path” career in technology marketing and entrepreneurship. He currently publishes online travel guides for both San Francisco and Seattle that draws over 1.5 million annual viewers at SFTravel.com®. His focus is Search Engine Marketing and optimization or “SEO” together with social media communities. He has lived in both San Francisco and Seattle and loves the culture on the West Coast. He has leveraged his background in operations and marketing to offer a broad range of consulting services to Microsoft and other Seattle companies with Revel Consulting, a mid-size boutique consulting firm. He will always look fondly on his downtown Chicago days with Deloitte, and is excited to continue his career’s evolution to entrepreneurship and consulting.
Joseph M. Donnelly, the chief financial officer at NBCUniversal Broadcasting and a longtime Comcast finance official, died on March 9 at St. Luke Roosevelt Hospital in New York City, at age 52, after suffering a heart attack on Feb. 28, according to several published reports and an official obituary. Prior to Comcast's merger with NBCUniversal, Donnelly was the CFO of Comcast's programming networks. Before that he worked in the cable company's development department, starting in 1996. A 2007 profile in B&C noted that projects Donnelly worked on ranged from investing in wedding-planner site TheKnot.com to Comcast's $47-billion acquisition of AT&T Broadband in 2003.
In the Philadelphia Inquirer, Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts said: "Joe was such a wonderful, warm person and a strong, quiet leader. He was an important part of our company's growth -- and of our company's culture. We will miss him so much."
In a statement to NBCU employees last Friday, Steve Burke, the CEO of NBCUniversal, said: “I had the pleasure of working with Joe during most of his 15-year career at Comcast and this past year at NBCUniversal. While there were many qualities to admire about him, I will most remember Joe as a person of great integrity and warmth. He was always dedicated to doing the right thing and he was one of those rare people who had no agenda other than to help the company and be a good colleague.
"Joe had a great financial mind combined with a warm and engaging personality. He was smart, hard-working and dependable and always greeted you with a pleasant hello and smile. It is hard to think of this company without him,” Burke said. Joe was a Touche Ross alumnus from the Philadelphia office.
Adrien Fraisee After graduating from Columbia Business School (CBS) in 2007, I joined the S&O practice at Deloitte Consulting in New York as new senior consultant. I spent most of the next four years working as generalist though most of my projects focused on Customer Marketing Strategy or M&A work in the Consumer Products and Pharmaceutical industries. I also full-heartily put my energy into leading various local and national MBA recruiting programs for the firm, including co-captaining the recruiting team for my alma mater – CBS. While I learned a great deal at Deloitte, one of my biggest lessons learned was that I had a deep passion for helping students make more informed career decisions. In April 2011, I made the decision to leave my job Deloitte to make my passion a reality and started Modern Guild, Inc., a web-enabled career mentoring program that combines online education with training from real world practitioners to help high school and college students ignite their career search.
I first conceived Modern Guild while at Stanford University, where I experienced first-hand the limitations of career services and just how lost students could be in identifying a career path that was right for them. Adopting what I call an Outward-Inward Model, I decided to actively pursue a job in strategy consulting because it was a heavily-recruited industry at Stanford. I molded myself into the perfect candidate without having a clue about what consulting really was. Certainly, it was not a passion of mine at the time. After graduation, I helped launch the Stanford Alumni Mentoring (SAM) pilot program, which paired alumni with job-hopeful students so that I could help entry-level candidates gain the mentorship I never had. While helpful, the program still did not address the root issue facing students: The lack of tools to improve their career understanding. Without a real grasp of their interests and skills, students were not equipped to have beneficial interviews or networking calls with experienced industry practitioners. These interactions were like an imbalanced seesaw. Students had no clue how to prepare for these calls, and mentors could not relate to the students who sounded vague about their career goals. On the contrary, the recently-launched Modern Guild balances the seesaw and creates a powerful mentoring program through its structured curriculum and one-on-one guidance from industry practitioners.
Modern Guild recently launched successful pilots with Columbia University, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Brunswick High School to great reviews from all key stakeholders – students, mentors, and school administrators. This summer, we are launching several other pilots with a mix of private and public universities, liberal art colleges, and high schools. Our recently launched fundraising efforts have secured 20% of the capital raise, and we continue to look for interested investors to further cement our relationships with schools, mentors and students. The next six months will be very telling for Modern Guild as we prepare for our official launch this fall.
While the work at Deloitte was challenging, it was massively rewarding. Deloitte taught me to believe in the courage of my convictions, and I was lucky enough to be in an environment that supported me for who I was, not just for who I was supposed to be on paper. I hope that Modern Guild allows me the opportunity to give others such rare and impacting encouragement. For more information about Modern Guild, please contact Adrien Fraise, CEO & Founder, by email at adrien@modernguild.com or by phone at 917-864-1445. You can also visit the company’s temporary website at www.modernguild.com.
Vicki Froslee and her son, Alex Froslee, testified in front of a MN State Senate committee regarding making the Black Bear Minnesota’s state mammal. This effort to make the black bear the state mammal began with 1st grader at Andover Elementary in Dana Coleman’s class watching the black bears on the dencams in Ely, MN and learning that Minnesota doesn’t have a state mammal. When Ms. Coleman’s 1st grade class couldn’t get the bill through the legislature the first year, her incoming 1st grade class took up the campaign and the bill is now working its way through the state legislature. Alex Froslee is currently in Ms. Coleman’s 1st grade class that is carrying on this effort. See news coverage of the hearing below.
http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2012/03/12/1st-graders-testify-to-make-black-bears-mns-mammal/
Hani Ganji left Deloitte in 2007 to attend law school, but before doing so, he spent nearly three months traveling around the world. Upon graduating from U.C. Hastings College of the Law in 2010, he joined the San Francisco office of Clyde & Co, a London-based law firm that has 27 offices worldwide, and specializes in insurance, transportation, energy, infrastructure, trading and finance.
Rev. Carla Golden has been serving the Unity Church of Indianapolis in Indianapolis, IN as the director of lay ministries since February of 2011. Both she and her husband are ordained ministers and previously served a congregation in Hollywood, FL. Carla left Deloitte back in 1989 as a human resource manager.
Jon Goode is now a first-time grandpa. Riley Ruth Goode was born to Ben and Erica Goode of Lake Zurich, Illinois on Father’s Day 2011. Ben and Erica are both CPAs, and alumni of the “other guys” (KPMG). Undoubtedly, Riley will be genetically predisposed to pursue a career in accounting. When the time comes, “I’ll steer her towards the good folks at Deloitte.”
William Grigg has joined the executive team at Arcadia Methodist Hospital as senior vice president/chief financial officer. With over 20 years of experience as a CFO, William returns to the Los Angeles area where he started his career at Deloitte & Touche. He previously served as executive vice president and chief financial officer for the Southcoast Health System in New Bedford, MA.
Jeremy Hartzell, VP and Manager of Income Tax Accounting at BNY Mellon, is proud to announce that he was recently elected as President of the Board of Directors of the Pittsburgh Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. This affiliate serves 30 counties in Western Pennsylvania and funded 10,000 mamograms last year alone. In the current year, they will grant nearly $1.8 million to breast cancer related causes in their service area. They host the annual Race for the Cure on Mother's Day each year with over 30,000 participants.
Tom Hornyak was recently elected to serve as treasurer of the board of directors of the International Technology Rental Association. The association has over 100 member companies located throughout the world. www.it-ra.org. He is currently the president of Micro Rental Service, Inc. located in Pittsburgh, PA. Tom worked at Touche Ross & Co. from 1972 through 1984.
Sriram Iyer recently published a collection of short stories titled "Musings of a Corporate Voyeur" that is now available on Amazon. The setting of the corporate work place is used to weave together the lives, aspirations, egos and insecurities of people. The dynamics of these interactions provides a perspective that is both farcical and irreverent while being perfectly plausible. From the use of a survey to address morale, to the quirks of leaders in startups, to the propensity of colleagues to gossip, readers are kept engaged in a journey that will resonate with their own experiences at work.
Robert Jansen - After beginning his career within Deloitte’s Milwaukee audit practice, Robert Jansen became the co-founder and managing director of Bridgewood Advisors Inc. (www.bridgewoodadvisors.com). Bridgewood is a Milwaukee-based merger and acquisition consulting firm that specializes in conducting strategic acquisition searches, selling privately held businesses, and divesting corporate divisions and product lines. Bridgewood is proud to serve clients ranging from entrepreneurs to Fortune 500 companies. The firm’s experience spans diverse industries within manufacturing, service, and distribution, with a focus on transactions up to $100 million.
Rogena “Reggie” Johnson, Denver, started the new year with a new job and a whole new paradigm. Working for eprentise, LLC, an Oracle EBS transformation software company (www.eprentise.com), she has never met her boss (Helene Abrams, Deloitte Alumnus, Chicago 1992-1995) face-to-face. She lives in Colorado and works almost exclusively from home, as do the other eprentise employees located in California, Florida, Georgia, New York and Bangalore. This is a whole new concept for her, yet her 21-year-old son doesn’t find it strange at all.
Her new job title is client quality assurance liaison, and the day-to-day duties are to support a couple of large accounts, using eprentise software, with the transformation, reorganization, and/or consolidation of their business processes running on Oracle E-Business Suite. We are a small company, so Reggie often finds herself working with the technical team to validate/test the software from a user perspective, editing and writing collateral for marketing, and performing “all other duties, as assigned.” Each day brings new challenges and she is looking forward to the adventure ahead ... as well as meeting her boss and co-workers.
Dick Jones started his own business - Jones Simply Sales, LLC, headquartered in the metro Atlanta area. The company helps small business owners grow sales by leveraging the power of technology tools and management systems. Dick writes a weekly "Business Advice" column for the local newspaper and you can visit his web site at www.simplysalesllc.com.
Irwin S. Kirschenbaum, managing partner of Kirschenbaum & Phillips, P.C., a leading collection law firm and principal of the KMT Group of Companies, purchasers of distressed debt since 1993, has been elected to the Board of Directors of DBA International. DBA International enhances the economic performance and liquidity of the international financial services industry and fosters the ability of consumers to participate in the marketplace for goods and services.
Steve Lenihan (Los Angeles 1973-75) is an attorney in Tucson, whose practice includes real estate and business transactions as well as property tax and condemnation litigation. Steve is also involved in residential lot development for production and custom home builders. After six years in public accounting, he became in-house counsel for a regional home building firm, and later president of its Tucson office. In 1990, he formed The Lenihan Law Firm, P.C. and has been in private practice since that time. Steve has three stepchildren and five grandchildren, four of whom live near him in Tucson. He is an avid golfer, jogger and hiker. Steve is an AV-Preeminent rated lawyer by Martindale and Hubbell, and is a member of the Pima County and State of Arizona bar associations. He is also a member of Tucson Conquistadores and Centurions, a fund raising organization for St. Mary's Hospital.
Dominick Maimone “I am continuing as chairman of the finance committee and financial advisor to St. Anthony church in Akron, Ohio. I still am enjoying duplicate bridge and golf. My wife, Mary, and I are interested in classical opera and symphony performances. We have a grandson who sings opera tenor. I retired from the Akron, Ohio office.”
Frank McEnulty’s company, Our Castle Fund Advisors, has now purchased its second pool of defaulted mortgages and is working to modify and convert these assets back to a “good asset” classification. Working with families in the Work Force and Affordable Income strata, Our Castle Fund Advisors is working to provide the “Double Bottom Line” of keeping families in their homes with affordable mortgage payments while providing a good return on its investment.
Gretta Miles, worked in the NYC office, assurance services until November 2008. Her second child was born on February 21, 2012. Mom and baby boy, Benjamin Alvah Miles, (8 lbs 15 oz) are doing well.
Gretta also started a new job as manager of financial reporting for Carrols Corporation in November of 2011.
Craig R. Morris, formerly of the Long Island office (1974 - 81), recently celebrated 30 years in public practice in the firm Craig Morris & Company. He was profiled in the January 2012 edition of the NYSSCPA's Nassau Chapter Newsletter, stating:
"The discipline, training and guidance I got at Deloitte gave me the foundation I needed (to start a practice), and I still draw on these influences today. It was a fabulous experience that I would recommend to anyone.”
Craig will also be honored with the Distinguished Service Award to the Nassau Chapter at its May 3, 2012 Installation Dinner (see column 1, bottom, of the April Nassau Chapter Newsletter attached).
Brigitte Nguyen has been enjoying a meteoric rise in the culinary world since she left Deloitte’s Los Angeles audit practice. She is an accomplished chef, and is now hosting a television show for the Cooking Channel showcasing the secrets of test kitchens of famous food companies in American. http://www.cookingchanneltv.com/from-the-kitchens-of/index.html
Mary Jane Olhasso For the past 18 months, Mary Jane Olhasso has been serving as economic development agency administrator for the County of San Bernardino where she is responsible for the economic growth and strategic future development for the largest county in the United States. Previously, she served for more than a decade as Director of Economic Development for the City of Ontario, where she worked with city leaders to put policies in place that generated approximately 4,000 new jobs and close to $135 million in tot al wages. She oversees key County departments encompassing more than 200 employees. The County’s Board of Supervisors and Olhasso’s team is recently completed a Vision Process for the County – a portrait of the future the County seeks to create. The County is now focused on implementation, engagement and the public-private collaboration to maximize the region’s resources. Olhasso served as an associate director on the CoreNet Global Board of Directors and is Co-Chair of the Women of CoreNet Global special interest group to promote the advancement of women in corporate real estate.
James Quigley - Ex Deloitte CEO James Quigley has been appointed trustee of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation. The foundation is an oversight body for the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), and works to develop and push the debate for a single set of global accounting standards.
Quigley, who is currently senior partner at Deloitte United States, said: "I am honored to be invited to serve as an IFRS Foundation Trustee. The support for International Financial Reporting Standards depends in part on the rigorous due process applied in their development, and the Trustees play a significant role in ensuring that the IASB's due process is applied diligently.
"I look forward to working with Michel Prada and my fellow Trustees in what I expect will be a challenging period for the organization. I share the hope of many that the United States and Japan advance the incorporation of IFRS into their respective financial reporting requirements."
At the end of last year US standard setters (FASB) called for a "modified incorporation" of global accounting standards, after national regulator SEC said it needed more time to decide on convergence.
Quigley, who has worked with Deloitte for 37 years, is due to end his term at the foundation on 31 December 2014. However, the term is renewable once.
Eva Schoenleitner joined VMware (NYSE:VMW) as the Senior Director Marketing for Central and Eastern Europe which includes Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Russia/CIS, and Eastern Europe. She comes from 11 years of Microsoft, where she recently ran the Windows business in Central and Eastern Europe. She currently lives in Munich, Germany.
Robert Smalley retired in December 2011 from Augusta State University (ASU) after spending 11½ years teaching accounting both full and part-time. When ASU and Georgia Health Sciences University merge, every organization for which Robert worked throughout his career (Haskins & Sells, Scientific Games, First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Augusta , Thermal Ceramics) will have changed their name -- after he left!
Kevin Spiegel writes that In March 2012, he established a law practice, the Law Office of Kevin A. Spiegel, in Chicago. He represents businesses in complex negotiations with government agencies at both the state and local level. Kevin has negotiated tax credits and financial incentives for businesses in a variety of industries, including manufacturing, retail, energy, private equity, and real estate. These businesses were able to obtain the incentives as a result of facility or office relocations and expansions that resulted in new job creation or the retention of existing jobs.
Greg Staszko Prior to retiring from Deloitte in May 2010, Greg Staszko became involved with a Deloitte sponsored program through American Corporate Partners to provide mentoring to returning vets from Iraq and Afghanistan. Greg is currently completing the mentoring process for my second candidate (it is a yearlong mentoring commitment for each candidate). His first candidate was hired by Deloitte ERS about a year ago. His second candidate received 2 job offers – Deloitte Consulting and McKinsey; and the candidate just decided to take the McKinsey offer. Greg plans to continue mentoring and pick up a 3rd candidate soon. Greg and his wife Gail recently celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary. Their daughter, Lindsey, graduated from the University of Arizona and works for Deloitte Services. Their son graduated from California State University Monterey Bay and works at a private country club and is pursuing a PGA professional career. Greg and Gail do a lot of traveling and attend special events. This year they are going to the Kentucky derby in May and on an Alaskan cruise in July. They continue to stay in touch with current and retired Deloitte colleagues. The Bay Area Deloitte leadership has 2 retired partner events each year which Greg never misses.
Vijay Talwar moved to Seattle about 18 months ago after a 4 year stint in Europe and Asia. He was asked to take on the CEO responsibilities for Blue Nile in November 2011. His wife Nita (whom he met many years ago while working for Deloitte in Cleveland) and their 2 children, Niko (12) and Sonia(8), have settled into the pacific northwest with great ease. Deloitte is the auditor at Blue Nile so it was easy to connect with folks from the Seattle office. He has also connected with another Cleveland office alum in Seattle and credits Deloitte employees and alumni to helping make his transition to the new city easier.
Doug Taylor - Since leaving Deloitte, Doug Taylor has tried to stay in the Pacific Northwest and in 2010, he found a great position with a life and health insurance company based in Bellingham, WA, Sterling Life Insurance. The parent company, Munich Re, is the global insurance/reinsurance giant based in Munich, Germany. Munich’s new acquisition, Sterling Life, needed a director to build an internal audit department, and Doug took that role. With another acquisition of a South Carolina insurer, Windsor Health Group based in Brentwood, TN, Doug found himself managing two internal audit departments. Soon, Doug, his life partner, and cat moved to the Nashville, Tennessee area. Being in the Nashville area puts him at the new major base of business operations (and his new team there), and within easy travel to the executive offices in Atlanta and North American HQ in Princeton. It also means Doug’s morning conference calls with Germany will start at 8am rather than 6am! He is enjoying this new chapter in a new city.
Maxine Walker, Dallas office, began working on a PhD in Organizational Leadership and Development in January, 2012. She just completed her first 3 credits and is attending school online at the University of The Rockies located in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She hopes to bring her knowledge back to Deloitte one day.
Kirby Warnock, Dallas office, has been invited to screen his documentary film, Return to Giant, at Baylor University on April 26 as part of their Celebration of Texas: Literature, Music & Film. It will take place on the Baylor University campus in Waco, Texas. Following the screening there will be a panel discussion on the impact of the motion picture Giant on Texas today. Details here: http://www.baylor.edu/lib/index.php?id=87653. He and his wife, Diann, celebrated 25 years of marriage on March 12.
Jim Webb, Dallas, is currently the Chief of Corporate Strategy for the Army & Air Force Exchange Service. He has recently been named as the Director of the Manufacturing Systems Management program at Southern Methodist University (SMU), where he has been a professor in the graduate school for the past five years.
Nancy Wong, Dallas office was selected as a part of the Deloitte Graduate School Assistance Program (GSAP) to pursue an MBA at NYU Stern in 2009. While at Stern, Nancy the President of Next Generation Nepal, a non-profit organization that fights child trafficking in Nepal. She deferred returning to Deloitte by a year, traded in her rollerboard suitcase and airline miles for a backpack and hiking boots to try to make a difference for the children in Nepal. Working in Nepal is very different than life at Deloitte as there are only a few hours of electricity per day, unreliable internet and mobile phone service. There are shortages of food, water, cooking gas, and petrol every day, even for people who can afford to buy these things -- most can't, with the average household living on USD $1.40 per day. The political situation is very unstable, with very regular strikes and "shut downs") where it is unsafe to be on the roads. But at the same time, the trafficked children she serves give her immense happiness and joy. They teach me that the ones who have the least often give the most, and they give it wholeheartedly, unconditionally. An example:
http://eat-explore live.tumblr.com/post/11959561363/three-pieces-of-my-heart-1
In her role as the director of strategy she provides strategic support, standardizes operations, creates technology strategies, establishes partnerships, and supports human resources management through recruitment and staff training – similar to what she did at Deloitte but in flickering candlelight on an empty stomach, with barely any resources at all. One more major challenge before her departure, to end her time in Nepal on a high note, is trekking to the Mt. Everest Base Camp at 19,000 ft.
Amy Zajac published A Cup of Comfort for Divorced Women, Pets Across America Volume 2, and Hot Dogs & Cool Cats Animal Stories “A La Carte”. Her first novel is complete and in the editing stage. To offset her writing, she volunteers at La Jolla Playhouse and Feeding America, San Diego. Having moved from Georgia to California, Amy is enjoying what she calls ‘Happy Reinvention’!
Ryan Zheng (f/k/a Wei Zheng) set a goal to get his CPA license and in February 2011, he achieved that goal. Congratulations Ryan on your perseverance and keeping the motivation from your counselor top of mind!
Delwyn Ziegler Since Deloitte, Delwyn Ziegler was the CFO of St. Johns Hospital in Santa Monica. He retired in 2006 and is living near Chandler, AZ. Most of his career was acting as CFO of hospitals, a medical group, and HMOs. He also spent ten years in consulting, and two years in the Peace Corps with family in Colombia, South America, where he put together English and Spanish versions of "How to do Consulting" for Peace Corps volunteers usage.
