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In This Issue:
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Engineering in the Financial World
Panelists, from left, Andrew Gaspar ’69, chairman, SV Investment Partners; Armen Avanessians ’83, managing director at Goldman Sachs; Dean Zvi Galil; Professor Emanuel Derman ’73GSAS, director of SEAS' financial engineering program; and Robert Gartland ’75, managing director, Morgan Stanley. Sponsors for the event included Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, SV Investment Partners,
The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Columbia Engineering School Alumni Association (CESAA).
While not all roads lead to Wall Street, there is a well-trodden path from 120th Street to the financial hub of the world. Recognizing that many Columbia SEAS graduates have moved south “From 120th Street to Wall Street,” the Columbia Engineering School Alumni Association initiated a special program for alumni in the financial services industry in the heart of their own world. More than 250 alumni attended the panel discussion, held at Goldman Sachs facilities on Water Street, that featured four current and former financial services Columbians who described the trajectories of their careers and answered questions, both general and specific. Participants included Armen Avanessians ’83, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs; Emanuel Derman ’73GSAS, Professor and Director of SEAS’ Financial Engineering Program and former Managing Director at Goldman Sachs; Robert Gartland ’75, Managing Director of Morgan Stanley; and Andrew Gaspar ’69, chairman, SV Investment Partners. Avanessians, director of Fixed Income, Currency & Commodities Strategies, Credit Research, Equity Strategies, and Financing Strategies, joined Goldman Sachs as a foreign exchange strategist in 1985. He became a vice president in 1988 and a partner in 1994. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, he was a member of the technical staff at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, where he worked in the common subsystems laboratory. He received his B.S.E.E. from M.I.T. in 1982 and M.S. from Columbia in 1983.
Ronald P. Mangione ’69, president of the Columbia Engineering School Alumni Association, welcomes more than 250 alumni to “From 120th Street to Wall Street,” hosted at Goldman Sachs.
Professor Derman is the first director of SEAS’ program in financial engineering and is also the Head of Risk at Prisma Capital Partners, a fund of funds. His book, My Life as A Quant: Reflections on Physics and Finance, was one of Business Week’s top ten books of the year for 2004. Dr. Derman obtained a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Columbia in 1973 and, until 1980, did research in theoretical particle physics at various universities, prior to joining AT&T Bell Laboratories. In 1985, he joined Goldman Sachs’ fixed income division where he was one of the co-developers of the Black-Derman-Toy interest-rate model. He retired from Goldman Sachs in 2002 and joined the SEAS faculty. Robert Gartland is a Managing Director of Morgan Stanley, Head of the Global Infrastructure for the Fixed Income Division (FID) and a member of the FID Executive Committee. He joined Morgan Stanley in 1979 as Manager of Financial Planning and Analysis and has held the positions of Vice President of Cashiering Operations, Treasury Management, Head of Finance, Administration and Operations for Morgan Stanley International in Europe, Head of Technology, and Head of Morgan Stanley Services. Gartland managed the sale of the Global Custody business to Chase Manhattan Bank in 1998 and joined Chase as a Managing Director before returning to Morgan Stanley in January, 2000, in his current position. He received an M.S. in Industrial Engineering from Columbia and a B.S. cum laude from Hofstra University. Andrew Gaspar ’69, chairman of Schroder Venture Partners LLC, is the advisor to the Schroder Ventures USA Fund. He spent 24 years in private equity investing and has conducted business in 31 countries. From 1991 to 1998, as co-founder of Lauder Gaspar Funds, he invested in global telecom companies and in media in Eastern Europe. For ten years prior to that, he was a Partner of Warburg Pincus & Co., specializing in technology and media investing. He has served on the Boards of Directors of 22 public and private companies, including Bridge Communications, Central European Media Enterprises and RSL Communications. He started his career as a digital design engineer at Raytheon and spent 10 years with RCA Corporation and its operating divisions in various finance, planning, new business development and operating positions, including running RCA Globcom’s international Voice and Data services. Gaspar also holds an M.S. degree in Computer Science from Northeastern University and an M.B.A. degree from Harvard Business School.
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