Josh Brandley
Columbia MBA 2011
Prior to attending Columbia, Josh worked as a management consultant at Carpedia International, after which he helped launch Vortex Connect, a mobile web technology venture. At Carpedia, Josh advised senior management working in many different sectors on the feasibility of business opportunities. During the launch of Vortex, Josh focused on product management, business development, and client services. Josh received a B.Sc.in electrical engineering from the University of Toronto.
Jonathan Cooper
Stern MBA 2011
InSITE Rightframe Team Fall 2009
Prior to this NYU, Jon worked in mergers and acquisitions for five years at both Duff & Phelps and Grant Thornton Corporate Finance providing strategic positioning advice, financial analysis and client and buyer relationship management. During this time, Jon’s teams completed the sale of corporate clients in a variety of industries, including healthcare, software, food service and shipping. This past year, Jon worked for Solaya Energy, LLC, a start up providing diversified renewable energy services.
Michael DiBenedetto
Columbia MBA 2011
InSITE Catchafire Team Fall 2009
Prior to Columbia, Michael co-founded a web startup called Qwidget, where he focused on product and business development. In 2007, he associate produced and directed the marketing and distribution of “Hometown Baghdad,” a web video series that went on to win three Webby Awards and gain critical praise from such outlets as the LA Times, the Today Show, Nightline, NPR, and the Times of London.
Ryan Golden
NYU JD 2011
Prior to NYU Law, he helped implement PeopleSoft Financials for a division of Lockheed Martin, and has worked at both for-profit and not-for-profit startups. His industry experience covers web development, health information technology, and financing. This coming summer, he will be a Summer Associate at Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati in Palo Alto.
Seth Goldman
Stern MBA 2011
InSITE Krossover Intelligence Team Fall 2009
Prior to NYU, Seth worked as an associate at Prospect Capital, a private equity and mezzanine debt investment company in New York, where he evaluated new deals and monitored existing portfolio companies across a variety of industries. Prior to Prospect, he worked as a consultant at Oliver Wyman, where he did projects with many of the largest global financial institutions. Seth holds an AB from Dartmouth College.
Sharon Goswami
NYU JD 2012
InSITE [me] & goji Team Fall 2009
Sharon has had extensive experience with grant writing in an academic context when she studied Chemical Engineering at Princeton University. As a Reiner G. Stoll Fellow, she researched fuel cells and other alternative energy technologies with Professor Jay Benziger, publishing a paper in American Chemical Society journal Langmuir detailing her findings. She later interned with privately held start-up Vorbeck Materials in R&D for their product graphene and with their in-house patent attorney developing new claims in the patent applications. Most recently, she has interned with the educational start-up Top Test Prep to help them expand their business as well as improve their tutoring services. She plans to specialize in Intellectual Property Litigation after graduating from law school.
Daniel Harman
Columbia MBA 2011
InSITE [me] & goji Team Fall 2009
Prior to this Columbia, Dan founded Harman Motive, Inc., an automotive performance parts manufacturer and service center in Torrance, CA. His duties included general management, product development, and online marketing. This past summer, he was a marketing intern at Zhong-An Finance, a micro-finance and investment bank based in Schenzen, China.
Omar Haroun
Columbia JD/MBA 2012
InSITE Catchafire Team Fall 2009
Prior to law school, Omar received a BA from the University of California Berkeley in Economics, and a second BA from in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Oxford University. Omar founded two student groups at Columbia Law School in his first year — Law Students for Social Enterprise and the Columbia Gastronomy Society. Over the summer of 2009, Omar was a Summer Associate at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe in San Francisco. Omar will spend the summer of 2010 as a Summer Associate at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich Rosati in Palo Alto.
Shiv Hira
Stern MBA 2011
At Stern, Shiv is a vice-president in the entrepreneurs club leading an initiative to establish a venture capital fund. Prior to Stern, Shiv worked in the investment banking division at J.P. Morgan Chase within the Syndicated & Leverage Finance Group. At J.P. Morgan Shiv executed mergers, acquisitions, and spin-offs for Fortune 500 companies by structuring loans and developing marketing strategies to raise capital. Shiv was also an internal consultant at J.P. Morgan and worked on projects in various functions including technology, profitability, and corporate strategy. Shiv holds a B.B.A from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.
Colleen Hongisberg
Columbia JD 2011
InSITE Krossover Intelligence Team Fall 2009
Prior to law school, she received a B.S. from UCLA and worked first at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and then at Compass Lexecon. At PwC, she investigated accounting fraud and obtained her CPA license. At Compass Lexecon, she worked as an economic consultant. This past summer, Colleen worked as an associate with Baker Botts, and this coming summer she will work for Latham & Watkins.
Nick Hurley
Stern MBA 2011
InSITE Krossover Intelligence Team Fall 2009
Nick received his BA from Boston College where he studied Philosophy and American Studies. He is currently an intern at DFJ Gotham Ventures. Prior to business school, Nick worked in middle market private equity at Allied Capital where he worked on control equity and mezzanine debt transactions in various industries. Before joining Allied, Nick was an analyst in Citi’s Investment Banking Division where he advised power generation companies and utilities on mergers and acquisitions and financing opportunities. He began his career as a consultant in KPMG’s Business Due Diligence Group where he advised strategic and financial buyers on the strategic and financial attractiveness of acquisition targets in niche industries. Nick remains involved with several non-profit organizations including New York Professional Advisors for Community Entrepreneurs (“NYPACE”) and he serves as the head of alumni relations for his class at Boston College.
Camilla Jimenez Villa
NYU MBA/MFA 2012
InSITE Catchafire Team Fall 2009
Camila grew up between Colombia and Italy where she used to be a professional fencer. She studied Communication in Milan before joining the NFTS in London to train as a filmmaker. After the NFTS, Camila and two fellow graduates founded “Cut the Papaya”, an independent film production company. Camila currently lives in NYC, where she is pursuing an MBA/MFA in Film Production at NYU.
Christopher Johnson
Columbia MBA 2011
InSITE PayPerks Team Fall 2009
Prior to Columbia, Chris served as President/Managing Officer of Rackson Corporation, a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise company, which owns and operates 18 restaurants in New Jersey and Michigan. For the past five years, Chris has managed a company staff of over 270 employees and the restaurant operation, marketing, and administrative duties. This fall, he constructed and opened two new restaurants in his New Jersey market. Previously, Chris owned and operated a Dunkin Donuts restaurant in Michigan.
Michael Katz
Columbia MBA 2011
InSITE Tigerbow Team Fall 2009
Before starting at Columbia, he was Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives at Conductor, an NYC-based technology start-up. Prior to Conductor, he focused on media investments as a venture capitalist at Pequot Ventures (now known as FirstMark Capital), and worked for Merrill Lynch in the Global Markets & Investment Banking division. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Project Enterprise, a Harlem-based nonprofit that provides micro loans and free consulting services to low-income entrepreneurs. Mike graduated with a B.S. from Georgetown University.
Stephanie Palmeri
Columbia MBA 2011
InSITE PayPerks Team Fall 2009
Prior to Columbia, Stephanie was a Senior Consultant at ‘mktg’ in the Marketing Applications & Consulting Group. Her consulting projects included identifying, designing and implementing digital marketing and technology solutions for global clients including SAP and Diageo. Prior to this, she was a Marketing Development Manager at Estee Lauder, where she led both new product and promotional marketing programs for the Clinique brand in alternative distribution channels. Her professional career began at Accenture, where she consulted Capital Market and Financial Service clients on market data assessment and automations projects. She is interested in the use of new media and technology to grow and sustain brands. Stephanie graduated from Villanova University with a BSBA in Marketing and Management Information Systems.
Gregory Pennington
Columbia MBA 2011
InSITE PayPerks Team Fall 2009
Prior to Columbia, Gregory worked at Google as an engineer, focusing on ads products and sales partnerships. He designed and delivered new tools to Google’s top customers and helped them interface their infrastructure with Google’s ads-buying systems. Before that, he was engaged in computational biology research at Carnegie Mellon University. He received a BS and MS in computer science from Carnegie Mellon in 2005 and 2006.
Alessandro Presti
Columbia JD/MBA 2013
Alessandro is a JD/MBA candidate at Columbia Law School and Columbia Business School. Prior to Columbia, Alessandro was a management consultant at Oliver Wyman, where he advised clients in the media, transportation and private equity industries. Alessandro also spent five months in Chile with Endeavor, a non-profit dedicated to supporting high-impact entrepreneurs in emerging markets, where he advised a digital media company on its growth strategy. Alessandro graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in History and Economics.
Brian Rothenberg
Stern MBA 2011
InSITE Rightframe Team Fall 2009
Outside of school, Brian is an intern at Canaan Partners, a venture capital firm specializing in early-stage information technology and life sciences investments with $2.4B of capital under management. Before moving to New York, Brian lived in his native San Francisco Bay Area where he worked at Yahoo! for several years. As Product Manager for Yahoo! Real Estate, he helped grow the online property to the #1 most visited real estate website. Concurrently, he helped several other Yahoo! businesses gain market share by serving as Team Lead for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) across the $1B Local Marketplaces & Commerce division. Brian also started two companies; an online ticket brokerage company and a private equity company that successfully acquired three web businesses. Brian earned a BS in Business Administration from the University of Southern California. Brian recently started blogging about technology and venture capital at his website.
Alex Shellhammer
Stern MBA 2011
InSITE [me] & goji Team Fall 2009
Prior to attending NYU, he spent 4 years as a Design Engineer at Honda R&D Americas, Inc where he was responsible for leading the development of vehicle components from concept ideation through mass production. At Honda he gained extensive experience in operations, product development and project management while negotiating across functional groups to successfully implement his designs. He also has experience working for Toyota where he spent a summer learning and implementing the operational effectiveness techniques of Continuous Improvement (Kaizen) and the Toyota Production System (TPS). Alex holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering and a BA in East Asian Studies from Bucknell University.
Maria Testani
Columbia MBA 2011
InSITE Rightframe Team Fall 2009
Previously, Maria was an associate at a boutique investment bank, Salem Partners, where she advised life sciences and technology start-ups through the venture capital funding process. Prior to Salem Partners, Maria was an investment banking analyst at Citigroup in New York and Wachovia in Los Angeles. As an analyst, Maria advised numerous clients on capital raises and mergers and acquisitions in the energy, gaming and entertainment sectors. Maria is also an active volunteer and fundraiser for New York Says Thank You, a non-profit organization which travels to disaster ravaged cities every 9/11 anniversary and assists in the rebuild of the community. Maria graduated Summa Cum Laude from New York University’s Stern School of Business with a BS in Finance and Accounting.
Marisa Tricarico
Stern MBA 2011
InSITE Tigerbow Team Fall 2009
Prior to business school, Marisa worked at Clarion Healthcare, a strategy consulting company specialized in pharmaceutical, biotechnology and other healthcare-related spaces. Marisa has experience assessing commercial opportunity & potential indications for new products, devising new product entry strategy, and evaluating new therapeutic areas for client expansion. Before Clarion Healthcare, Marisa worked as a neuroscience researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital, performing structural neuroimaging research related to aging & Alzheimer’s disease. Prior to Massachusetts General, she worked as a research assistant with fMRI technology at Boston University’s Center for Memory and Brain. She has published a first-author abstract for the American Academy of Neurology and has co-authored other publications in the Journal of Neuroscience and Gene. Marisa holds a BA in Cognitive Neuroscience and is a magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Boston University.
Sean Weinstock
NYU JD 2012
Prior to NYU Law, Sean took on a variety of entrepreneurial projects including co-founding LocoBuzz, a Web 2.0 firm aimed at providing online event ticketing and remote viewing capabilities for college events. Sean previously worked as a Strategy Intern at Stone Yamashita Partners, a boutique management consultancy in San Francisco, where he primarily focused on a client engagement with a major pharmaceutical.
Ben Zhuk
Columbia MBA 2011
Ben founded Antenna, a product design company in NYC, in 2004. Since then, he has co-founded three joint ventures that use communication technology to create new markets in underserved B2B niches. Ben is focused on improving customer experience through behavior analysis and rapid product iteration.