Advisory Council for Cornell Financial Engineering Manhattan Holds Inaugural Meeting

Council members David Weinberger and Professor Robert Jarrow at the Advisory Council meeting.

As Cornell's Financial Engineering activity in Manhattan (CFEM) evolves, an Advisory Council has been established to help guide the evolution of the 55 Broad Street office of the School of Operations Research and Information Engineering (ORIE). The Council held its first meeting on November 8, 2007 at Cornell Club in New York. They were welcomed by College of Engineering Dean Kent Fuchs, who expressed admiration for what has already been accomplished at 55 Broad Street and his support for the ongoing activity there. The Council joined with the financial engineering faculty and ORIE staff to receive the Council charge from James Renegar, Director of ORIE; Kathryn Caggiano, Associate Director for the Master of Engineering program; and Victoria Averbukh, Director of CFEM.

After reviewing some recent history and describing ORIE's current facilities in Manhattan, Dr. Averbukh stated the mission of CFEM as follows: "Building on the highly successful financial engineering program on the Ithaca campus, Cornell FE Manhattan fosters close working relationships between Cornell and the financial services industry." She outlined advantages that CFEM can provide to three constituencies: Master of Engineering students, who can complement their theoretical understanding of the financial markets through contact with Wall Street professionals; faculty and PhD students through collaboration with Wall Street and the discovery of relevant research topics; and the financial services industry, through access to top-level academic talent and cutting edge financial engineering research. Dr. Averbukh pointed out that Cornell's financial engineering activities can benefit from better marketing to Wall Street, increased program funding, and enhanced program offerings.

In his remarks, Professor Renegar traced the long history of ORIE and brought Council members, most of whom are ORIE alumni, up to date on the faculty then and now in some of the major areas of ORIE research activity: statistics, applied probability, optimization, logistics, game theory, and financial engineering. Dr. Caggiano traced the growth and quality of the financial engineering Masters program applicant pool and described the newly revamped curriculum, which incorporates an internship and third semester that will be housed at CFEM starting in the fall.

The Advisory Council will now carry out its responsibility of cultivating Cornell FE's competitive image, participating in the development of program activities, mentoring students, and fundraising. Following the inaugural meeting participants agreed that the session had been a success, with all members showing great enthusiasm and interest in the successful development of CFEM programs. “I am very happy that the meeting turned out to be an interactive discussion with many Advisory Council members asking excellent questions and making useful suggestions in helping to move CFEM forward.” said Dr. Averbukh.

The members of the Advisory Council are as follows:

• Robert Ferstenberg, BS, M Eng and PhD Mechanical Engineering (Cornell). Managing Director in the Institutional Sales and Trading Division of Morgan Stanley.
• James Gingrich, BS and M Eng ORIE, MBA (Cornell). CEO and Chairman of the Board, Sanford C. Bernstein, LLC. Former partner with Booz Allen Hamilton, heading consumer products and retailing consulting in Latin America and New York.
• Joel Glasky, BS Electrical Engineering (Cornell), MBA (Harvard). President of Financo Securities, LLC. Former Managing Director of the Private Placement Group at Lehman Brothers and member of the Corporate Finance Group at Citibank.
• Lakhbir S. Hayre, PhD Math (Oxford). Managing Director in the Fixed Income Currencies and Commodies division at Citigroup. Former professor of statistics at the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania.
• Leila Heckman, BA Math (Brown), MS OR (Cornell), PhD OR and Statistics (Polytechnic University). Senior Managing Director, Bear Stearns Asset Management. Former CEO of Heckman Global Advisors and Managing Director of Global Asset Allocation at Salomon Smith Barney.
• Paul Jablansky, BA Math (Cornell). Managing Director and Head of Asset Securitization and Principal Investing at Bank of America Securities. Former head of asset-backed securities research at Goldman Sachs and Salomon Smith Barney and portfolio manager at Citigroup Investments.
• Robert Jarrow, BS Math (Duke), MBA (Dartmouth) and PhD (MIT). Ronald P. and Susan E. Lynch Professor of Investment Management, Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell. Recipient of the CBOE Pomerance Prize for Excellence in the Area of Options Research, the Graham and Dodd Scrolls Award, and the 1997 Financial Engineering of the Year Award.
• Ivan L. Lustig, BS and M Eng, ORIE, MBA (Cornell). Corporate Managing Director and Head of Mergers and Acquisitions, North America, at ABN AMRO Incorporated. Previously Managing Director and Head of US Media and Communications at Schroder Co. and Vice President at L. F. Rothschild Co.
• Richard A. Marin, BA Economics and MBA (Cornell). Visiting Senior Lecturer of Asset Management, Johnson Graduate School of Management, and Senior Advisor, Bear Stearns Asset Management, where he had been the Chairman and CEO. Former member of the management committee at Bankers Trust Company, Chairman and CEO of Deutsche Asset Management, and founder of Beehive Ventures, a venture capital fund.
• Todd Rethemeier, BS and M Eng, ORIE, MBA (Cornell). Founder of Sur Terre Research, a unit of the Soleil Securities Group network. Formerly telecommunications analyst at Banc of America Securities, J. P. Morgan, Bear Stearns, and Booz Allen Hamilton.
• Alan Rosenthal, BS Electrical Engineering (Cornell). Retired as Vice President of the Information Technology Business Architecture Group of Bank of America. Previously Vice president at Merrill Lynch.
• Jason Roth, BS and M Eng, ORIE. Equity Derivatives Trader, Deutsche Bank. Previously Equity Derivatives Trader, CS First Boston.
• David Weinberger, BA Mathematics (Princeton), M Eng and PhD, ORIE. General partner, O'Connor Partners, which merged into Swiss Bank to form the core of UBS Investment Bank. Formerly at Goldman Sachs, Bell Laboratories and Yale University.