Donald Peskin has more than five years of management consulting experience and 20 years of Wall Street and investment experience including, most notably, as a Managing Director and Principal at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette ("DLJ") where he served from 1988 to 1997. He is a three time recipient of the DLJ "Superachiever" award and is a member of the DLJ "Hall of Fame". At DLJ he was responsible for the Fixed Income Structured Finance Department and had selected responsibilities for various trading positions. Throughout his tenure at DLJ, Mr. Peskin was responsible for many significant innovations in the realm of structured products, some of which developed into multi-billion dollar markets. At DLJ he was frequently consulted by senior management regarding the structuring and valuation of complex securities.
Peskin's previous Wall Street experience included service at Dean Witter Capital Markets and Morgan Stanley & Co. He left DLJ in September 1997 to pursue private investment opportunities in finance, technology and related industries.
Donald Peskin is the founder of Short Hills Capital, LLC, a privately held investment vehicle. Short Hills Capital was a principal investor in Regions First Financial, a holding company with interests in the sub-prime auto marketplace, which were sold in 2004 to a public entity. Through Short Hills Capital, Mr. Peskin was a founding investor in Numismatic Funding, LLC a secured lender to rare coin dealers. In addition to his principal investment activities, Mr. Peskin has been a managing principal of Cognitive Capital Management, the general partner of the Cognitive Strategic Fund, a hedge fund of funds. He also served as a member of the Board of Directors of Ballard Petroleum LLC from 1997 until its acquisition by Alberta Energy Corp. in early 2001. He has been recently named to the Board of Directors of ioSemantics Corporation, a software firm that applies artificial intelligence to the management of large-scale software development.
Donald Peskin holds a BS with Honors, a Masters of Engineering in Operations Research and an MBA with a concentration in Finance from Cornell University.
Jason O'Neill founded the company Pencil Bugs in November 2005, right after he turned 10 years old.
Pencil Bugs attach to a standard pencil via a pipe cleaner body. Each bug has a Styrofoam head with antennae and eyes and comes with its own Certificate of Authenticity, which includes its name, the day it was "born" and instructions on the proper care and training of a Pencil Bug. What started as a simple craft fair product a few years ago is now a full-fledged business for O'Neill, complete with a city of Temecula business license, a state tax identification number and a Web site for sales.
O'Neill donates 5 percent of Pencil Bugs sales to Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego. The other 95 percent goes right back into the product itself.
Robert Innes is a Professor of Agricultural Policy Analysis, Microeconomic Theory, Economics of Information and Risk and Environmental Economics in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Arizona.
Robert Innes' research has focused on a variety of issues in microeconomic theory, industrial organization, finance, agricultural policy, environmental economics, and law. He has received the Outstanding Ph.D. Dissertation (1987), Quality of Research Discovery (1994, 1999), and Distinguished Policy Contribution awards from the Agricultural Agricultural Economics Association, the Best Published Research Award (1999) from the Western Agricultural Economics Association, and the Hicks-Tinbergen Medal for outstanding research from the European Economic Association (1994).
Innes has also served on the faculty University of California (Davis) and as Senior Economist on the President's Council of Economic Advisers, where he developed and advanced a range of farm policy reforms ultimately proposed by the Clinton Administration for enactment in the 1996 Farm Bill.
Robert Innes received his BA, MBA and Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley.
Justin DeKoszmovszky is the Manager of Strategic Sustainability for Africa and Near East business at SC Johnson.
Justin DeKoszmovszky received his MBA from Cornell University's Johnson School.
Daniel R. Hesse has been Chief Executive Officer and President of Sprint Nextel Corporation since December 18, 2007. Hesse is responsible for leading the $6 billion division that provides wireline and wireless voice, data and video services to nearly 8 million customers in 18 states.
Hesse was Chairman of the Board of Embarq Corporation from May 2, 2006 to December 18, 2007 and served as its President and Chief Executive Officer until December 18, 2007. He served as Chief Executive Officer of Sprint Nextel's local telecommunications division from June 2005 to May 2006.
Hesse served as Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Terabeam Corporation, a telecommunications company, from March 2000 to June 2004, when Terabeam merged with YDI Wireless to form Terabeam Wireless. From 1997 to 2000, he served as President and Chief Executive Officer of AT&T Wireless Services and served as its Executive Vice President. Prior to that, he served as General Manager for the AT&T Online Services Group and President and Chief Executive Officer of AT&T Network Systems International. He served as Chief Executive Officer of Local Telecommunications Division of Sprint Corporation PCS Group and Sprint Corporation FON Group from June 7, 2005 to May 17, 2006.
Daniel Hesse holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Notre Dame, a Master of Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Master of Business Administration from Cornell University.
Liam Hoban is a Project Manager for Adidas America.
Liam Hoban is a graduate of Cornell University.
Daniel Fabian is a member of Ospraie Advisors, L.P. His work involves conducting all aspects of the investment process including in-depth industry and company-specific due diligence, sourcing and screening prospective transactions, constructing comprehensive financial and operating models, managing advisors and consultants, structuring investments and authoring and presenting internal investment committee documents.
Prior to working at Ospraie Advisors, Fabian worked at Credit Suisse (CSFB Strategic Partners) as an Associate.
Daniel Fabian received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University.
Marcus Buckingham is a British motivational speaker, trainer, public leader, researcher and author. He has trained over 2 million people through his books, seminars and lectures.
Buckingham, who is a member of the Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on Leadership and Management; started as a senior researcher with The Gallup Organization, and helped to develop the Strengths-based approach to management that is now gaining wider implementation.
Strengths Management suggests that any job should be tailored to fit the person instead of the other way around. Buckingham has authored and/or co-authored several books on the subject including "First, Break All the Rules", "Now, Discover Your Strengths", and "The One Thing You Need to Know". He also helped create the "StrengthsFinder" assessment tool that assists individuals in discovering their own strengths.
In 2007, Buckingham set out on a national bus tour taking the Strengths Movement across America. Buckingham was featured in the PBS Special, "Go Put Your Strengths To Work" and on the Today Show.
Marcus Buckingham graduated from Cambridge University in 1987 with a master's degree in Social and Political Science.
Harry M. Kaiser is the Gellert Family Professor of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University. He teaches and conducts research in the areas of price analysis, marketing, industrial organization, policy, and quantitative methods. Professor Kaiser has written 100 journal articles, three books, 17 book chapters, and over 200 research bulletins in these areas. He has received over $7 million in research grants from such agencies as the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the New York Department of Agriculture and Markets. The primary focus of Professor Kaiser's research has been on the social implications of agricultural demand and supply policies aimed at improving producers' economic welfare.
Since 1994, Professor Kaiser has been the director of the Cornell Commodity Promotion Research Program. Much of his research focuses on the market-wide economic effects of commodity advertising and promotion programs. Currently, Professor Kaiser and his staff annually conduct the economic analysis required by the U.S. Congress for the national dairy and fluid milk processor advertising programs. More recently, Professor Kaiser has worked in the area of experimental economics, with an emphasis on the private provision of public goods. Professor Kaiser also was involved with some of the first research that investigated the economic impacts of climate change on the U.S. agricultural sector.
Harry Kaiser received his undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire aqnd his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota.