Board Officers

Chair

Thomas Brigandi, CFA

RisCura
2022-2023

Thomas Brigandi, CFA, is a Managing Director at RisCura, the largest emerging & frontier market-dedicated investment consultancy by assets under advisement (AUA), with over US$200 billion. RisCura also manages / administers roughly $10 billion in assets. Prior to joining RisCura, Brigandi served as a Vice President in the Global Investor Management Team at Moody’s Investors Service (MIS), where he was responsible for building and maintaining senior level institutional investor relationships. Prior to serving in the Global Investor Management Team, Brigandi served for nearly a decade in the Global Project and Infrastructure Finance Group at MIS, where he was a Lead Analyst responsible for a portfolio of 34 power, toll-road, airport, port, water, wastewater, natural gas pipeline and project finance credits that collectively had over $15 billion of debt outstanding. While a Lead Analyst, Brigandi served on Moody’s public pension steering committee, ESG Americas working group and veteran recruiting sub-committee. Prior to Moody’s, Brigandi worked at the ~$250bn NYC Pension Fund, where he focused on energy and natural resources and reported directly to the chief investment officer.

Brigandi is Chair of the Board of Directors of CFA Society New York (CFANY), one of the largest CFA Institute Societies. Brigandi, the CFA Institute Inaugural Global Outstanding Young Leader & 2021 Americas Volunteer of the Year, has organized over 90 in-person CFA Society conferences globally that were attended by over 17,000 investment professionals, in addition to over 50 virtual conferences that reached many thousands of participants. These events featured over 400 senior asset owner and investment consultant speakers who represent organizations that collectively oversee or advise on more than $75 trillion in fiduciary assets. Brigandi, the founder of CFANY’s Asset Owner Series, Global Policymakers Series, Emerging and Frontier Market Series and Putting Beneficiaries First Series, leads a team of several hundred investment professional volunteers globally.

Brigandi maintains over 14,000 connections on LinkedIn and holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance, Accounting and Economics from the Macaulay Honors College (MHC) at the City University of New York. Brigandi received the college’s inaugural Alumni Pioneer Award and serves on the MHC Foundation Board of Directors as Treasurer. Brigandi serves as a Board Member of The Ocean Foundation, an Advisory Board Member of the Singapore Economic Forum, a Bretton Woods Committee Member and a Fellow of the Foreign Policy Association.

Vice Chair

David Allen, CFA

Octane

2023-2024

David Allen, CFA, is the Vice Chair of the Board of the CFA Society of New York. He is also Managing Director at Octane Investments, a firm he founded to invest in traditional energy companies. Prior to this, he served large institutions at Schroders and served in a similar position at AB, for nearly a decade at each of those firms. He also has founded and ran two FinTech startups and he traded FX in the 1990s. He earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania in Economics and completed the Value Investing executive education curriculum at Columbia University. Allen is Chair of the NY Society’s Programming Committee, and recently passed the CFA Institute’s ESG certification.

Secretary

Marya Ann Savola, CFA, MBA

Customers Bank
2021-2023

Marya Ann Savola, CFA, MBA, is a Vice President and Portfolio Manager at Customers Bank in Fund Finance. Prior to Customers Bank, she worked at JPMorgan Chase & Co. from 1999 to 2020 within client relationship teams in corporate banking, capital markets, middle market banking, and business banking providing treasury solutions, credit financing, capital markets and asset management capabilities. Her sector experiences include healthcare services, alternative investment management, private equity, and professional services. Prior to JPMorgan Chase & Co., she worked at investor relations agency, The Financial Relations Board Inc. in Chicago, as a Market Intelligence Specialist from 1994 to 1997. While studying at Northwestern University as an undergraduate student, she worked during summer internships, at Bear Stearns & Co. (now JPMorganChase & Co.) in Chicago in 1991, and at The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in 1992.

Marya earned a Bachelor of Arts in History from Northwestern University and a Master of Business Administration in Finance and Accounting from the William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Rochester. She is a CFA Charterholder, a member of CFA Institute, and on the Board of Directors of the CFA Society of New York. She previously served as chairperson of the Audit Committee and of the Nominations Committee of the CFA Society of New York during her first term on the Board. She also previously served as a board member of the Simon Women’s Alliance at the University of Rochester for one three-year term, and is a member of China Institute in New York, and a member of the Finnish American Chamber of Commerce in New York.

Treasurer

Andrew Gordon Auslander, CFA, FRM

Agile Financial LLC
2021-2023

Andrew Auslander, CFA, FRM, has over 25 years of experience in the global financial markets. He has spent half his career as an enterprise risk manager experienced in developing risk frameworks to support overall business strategy for asset management, private banking, and investment banking. During this time, he managed market, traded credit, counterparty credit, liquidity, operational, vendor, and model risks. He was a repo and securities lending trader for twelve years for global firms Salomon Brothers and BNP Paribas.

Andrew earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Merchant Marine Academy. He holds a Master of Science degree in Computer Science and Information Systems from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and studied Finance at New York University’s Stern School of Business. Andrew is a CFA Charterholder and a Financial Risk Manager (FRM) certified by the Global Association of Risk Professionals. Mr. Auslander holds FINRA Series 7, 24, and 63 licenses.

Sanjay Arora, CFA, CMA, ACA

Raymond James
2022-2024

Sanjay Arora, CFA, CMA, ACA, is a Managing Director: Institutional Fixed Income Capital Markets at Raymond James Financial Inc. (listed “RJF”) and has over twenty-five years of global experience. He was re-elected to the Board of Directors this year and was formerly Vice Chairman of Institutional Asset Management Group.

Arora spent a decade in Bahrain, starting his professional career with PricewaterhouseCoopers and later as CFO for one of the largest local investment company. He was appointed by Morgan Keegan & Co, owned by Regions Financial (listed “RF”), at their head office in Memphis, TN to expand their Institutional Fixed Income Capital Markets. Raymond James bought Morgan Keegan and Arora was relocated to New York. Arora is Chartered Accountant, Cost& Management Accountant, Certified Management Accountant and CFA charterholder.

Paul Benjamin, CFA

2024-2026

Paul Benjamin, CFA

Paul Benjamin brings a wealth of knowledge and experience from a multi decade career in investment management. Educated at the University of Colorado, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Economics, and Cornell Universities Johnson School of Management, where he completed his MBA. Paul has consistently demonstrated a commitment to excellence and continuous learning in the field of finance.

Professionally, Paul has held senior roles at multiple large publicly traded companies. Notably as the Deputy CIO of Alcoa’s Investment Office where he was responsible for portfolio construction and manager due diligence of their complex pension and foundation investment programs. More recently, Paul was the Senior Investment Officer and effective CIO for Cowen. Where he built and ran the investment office and was instrumental in navigating the company through the recent turbulent markets with innovative strategies and a focus on risk management. Paul’s comprehensive understanding of the investment landscape, coupled with his educational achievements position him as a valuable member of the board. He is excited to drive forward the organization’s mission to support the professional advancement of our members.

Caroline Busby, CFA

BlackRock
2023-2025

Caroline Busby, CFA, is a member of the US Institutional iShares Bond ETF Team at BlackRock. In this role, she is responsible for spearheading regulatory and structural innovation initiatives that harmonize the accounting, capital, and regulatory treatment of bond ETFs with that of individual bonds. Prior to her current role, Caroline spent 2+ years on the iShares Institutional Bond ETF Sales Team.

At BlackRock, Caroline serves as Global Chair of the Green Team Network (“GTN”), the corporate sustainability employee network. She’s responsible for driving the development of GTN’s long-term strategic plan and for managing a 10-person global Steering Committee. Caroline also co-created a BlackRock CFA Group to bring together employees who are CFA charterholders, exam candidates, or members of local CFA Societies.

Before being elected member of the CFANY Board of Directors, Caroline served as Co-Chair of their Young Leaders Group and as Co-Head of their Diversity & Inclusion Forum.

Prior to joining BlackRock, Caroline held roles in private fund business development and fixed income research at AllianceBernstein. Caroline graduated from Georgetown University with a double major in Finance and Management from the McDonough School of Business.

Ken D’Souza, CFA

PGIM Quantitative Solutions
2023-2025

Ken D’Souza, CFA, is a Managing Director and Portfolio Manager for PGIM Quantitative Solutions working within the Quantitative Equity team. He oversees the analysts on the Quantitative Equity Team and is responsible for portfolio management, analysis and research. Prior to joining PGIM Quantitative Solutions, Ken was a Portfolio Manager at Batterymarch Financial Management where he utilized a blend of quantitative, fundamental and macroeconomic insights. Prior to Batterymarch, he was a research and development engineer and manager at Shaw Industries (Berkshire Hathaway). He is a past president and member of the Board of Directors of the Society of Quantitative Analysts and has served on the Board of Directors of the CFA Society New York and CFA Society Boston. He has also lectured on Financial Risk Management at Columbia University. Ken earned a BS in chemical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, an MS in both management science and engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from the University of Chicago, graduating as an Amy and Richard F. Wallman Scholar.

Arthur Fliegelman, CFA

Research & Analysis Center of the Office of Financial Research, U.S. Department of the Treasury
2022-2024

Arthur Fliegelman is a senior financial analyst in the Research & Analysis Center of the Office of Financial Research, a unit of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Mr. Fliegelman has previously been associated with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Moody’s Investors Service, Salomon Brothers, CIGNA Corporation and Hay Associates. He has an MBA from the Wharton School and is a Chartered Financial Analyst. He was awarded the Benjamin Graham Distinguished Service Award by CFA NY in 2018 and has twice been named a CFA NY volunteer of the year for his CFA NY activities.

Paulina Rogawski, TEP, CRPC

Merrill Lynch
2022-2024

Paulina begun her career at MetLife in 1978, where she handled pension plans for Fortune 1000 companies, senior executives and board members of many foundations and endowments. She was a director of pensions marketing and served on the Asset Allocation Committee. In addition, she was a marketing strategist at Citibank Global Asset Management – Alternative Investment Group and launched socially responsive investment management products at Friends Ivory & Sime. She moved at the end of 2002 to Merrill Lynch, Private Wealth as a senior financial advisor. Paulina has extensive marketing and sales experience in the investment management arena.

Paulina received her BS degree from CCNY and has done graduate work at New York University. She is an Enrolled Actuary and served on the board of TIA. She also is an angel member at 100 Women in Finance where serves on the Education Committee as well as a member of Women in Derivatives and Women Investment Forum. In addition, she serves on the advisory board of the private foundation, Beljanski Foundation focus on the research and prevention of cancer.

Leo Schmidt, CFA

2024-2026

Leo Schmidt, CFA was volunteer of the year for the CFA Institute for the Americas in 2023. In 2020 and 2022, he was volunteer of the year for the CFA Society New York. Starting in 2015, he was the Chair of the Institutional Asset Management group. He developed the Market Outlook series of events and frequently has been a mentor for the CFA Research Challenge.

Leo has been an institutional investor for over 20 years. Most recently for 11 years, he was a Senior Equity Analyst at the Chubb Corporation, a large public insurance company where he was responsible for all analysis on a $2 billion, 70+ stock portfolio (total corporate investment assets of $45 billion). The Chubb equity portfolio had an outstanding record with close to 300 basis points of outperformance versus the S&P 500 for over 10 years. Prior to Chubb, he worked at Advent Capital Management in Convertibles Strategies, at a $20 billion Nuveen managed accounts fund, and at Reich & Tang Capital Management. He graduated from Columbia University, with a BA in Economics and History and earned an MBA from NYU Stern. Before college, he worked in show business for 10 years mainly as dancer where the highlights include the 1980 revival West Story, a night club act at Rockefeller Center Rainbow Room for nearly three years, and several ballet companies including the New York Dance Theater. Currently, Leo is semi-retired and CIO at River Eddy Capital Management, a family office.

Mila Skulkina, CFA

2024-2026

Mila Skulkina is a Senior Managing Director and Lead Portfolio Manager for Emerging Markets Fixed Income at Lord Abbett. In that role, she leads a team of Emerging Markets portfolio management professionals, corporate & sovereign research analysts and is responsible for managing Emerging Markets sovereign and corporate debt across dedicated mandates and global multi-asset portfolios. Prior to joining Lord Abbett in 2013, Ms. Skulkina was a research analyst at Sanders Capital working across long-only, long/short, and multi-asset portfolios. Previously, she was a strategy consultant at Bain & Company and an investment banking analyst at Merrill Lynch. She has over 20 years of investment experience and holds an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management. She received her undergraduate degree in business economics from UCLA, graduating summa cum laude. She is also a member of the Board of Visitors of the UCLA Economics Department, a member of the Bretton Woods Committee and a member of the Institute of International Finance’s Principles Consultative Group. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the CFA Society New York.

Arun Manansingh

CFA Society New York

Arun Manansingh is Chief Executive Officer for CFA Society New York, one of the largest of CFA Institute’s Global Financial Centers. In this leadership role, Arun oversees all the Society’s staff and operations. Before joining CFA Society New York, Arun was Executive Director-Corporate Services for the World Trade Centers Associations (WTCA) – a global association with a network of over 300 of the world’s most iconic buildings with the purpose of facilitating economic development and trade. There he oversaw day-to-day leadership of WTCA’s operations, including business planning and budgeting, business development, people management, information technology. Arun held positions of Chief Operating Officer and Chief Information at the WTCA. Prior to joining the WTCA, Arun served as Chief Information Officer for Judlau Contracting, a leader in the heavy construction industry specializing in large public works projects where he directed strategic technology planning. Previously, he was a Senior Vice President directing mission-critical systems at SMBC Leasing and Finance (a subsidiary of the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation Group). Arun holds a BS degree in Architecture from the New York Institute of Technology.

Karen E. Boroff, PhD Seton Hall University 2012-2015

Karen E. Boroff, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Management at the Stillman School of Business. Previously, she was on a one-year assignment as a visiting professor at the United States Military Academy. She was also the dean of Seton Hall University’s Stillman School of Business from 2000 to 2010. Under her leadership, the school was recently reaccredited by the premier accrediting agency of business schools, the AACSB, and was also awarded the prestigious accounting accreditation. She initiated the development of a code of conduct for the Stillman School, as well as a lecture series focused on integrity in business practice. During her tenure, the school opened its Trading Room, Seton Hall Sports Polling Center, and Entrepreneurship Center. The school tremendously increased its international outreach, especially with excellent colleges in China. The school has earned national distinctions for its undergraduate and graduate programs, as cited in such rankings as Bloomberg, BusinessWeek, US News and World Report, Entrepreneurship 2.0, and the Princeton Review. In January 2008, the school earned the Council on Higher Education Accreditations award on Institutional Outcomes Assessment. Boroff earned a PhD in business from Columbia University, an MBA from Lehigh University and a BS in industrial and labor relations from Cornell University.

*Richard G. Campbell 1937-38 *Richard B. Jones 1938-39 *Eugene J. Habas 1939-40 *Howard F. Vultree 1940-41 *Marshall Dunn 1941-42 *Wm. Hamilton Swartz, CFA 1942-43 *Lucien O. Hooper, CFA 1943-44 *Charles Tatham Jr. 1944-45 *N. Leonard Jarvis 1945-46 *Pierre R. Bretey 1946-47 *Shelby C. Davis, CFA 1947-48 *Glenelg P. Caterer, CFA 1948-49 Joseph M. Galanis, CFA 1949-50 *John W. Spurdle 1950-51 Jeremy C. Jenks, CFA 1951-52 *Marvin Chandler 1952-53 *Sidney B. Lurie 1953-54 *William R. White 1954-55 *Nathan Bowen 1955-56 *W. Sturgis Macomber 1956-57 Nicholas E. Crane 1957-58 *Ralph A. Rotnem, CFA 1958-59 Lawrence R. Kahn 1959-60 Edward S. Wilson 1960-61 Donald B. Macurda 1961-62 *Edward R. Holt 1962-63 *Gerald L. Wilstead 1963-64 *Thomas H. Lenagh, CFA 1964-65 *Todd G. Alexander 1965-66 Raymond W. Hammell, CFA 1966-67 *Jane L. Brett 1967-68 Sidney R. Winters 1968-69 Philip E. Albrecht, CFA 1969-70 Robert D. MacMurdy, CFA 1970-71 Stanley A. Nabi, CFA 1971-72 David Norr, CFA, CPA 1972-73 Peter J. DeAngelis, CFA 1973-74 Arthur K. Carlson 1974-75 Herbert E. Goodfriend 1975-76 Dave H. Williams, CFA 1976-77 John S. Chalsty 1977-78 Gary J. Burkhead, CFA 1978-79 H. Kent Atkins, CFA 1979-80 Leon G. Cooperman, CFA 1980-81 Hilton McCrea Jervey, CFA 1981-82 *J. Kendrick Noble Jr., CFA 1982-83 Robert G. Heisterberg, CFA 1983-84 Bernadette B. Murphy, CMT 1984-85 Charles S. Comer, CMT 1985-86 Robert W. Radsch, CFA 1986-87 John J. McCabe 1987-88 A. William Bodine 1988-89 Andrew Gray III 1989-90 Everett G. Titus III 1990-91 Guy G. Rutherfurd Jr., CFA 1991-92 George E. Austin., CFA 1992-93 A. Michael Lipper., CFA 1993-94 *Penelope O. Adelmann, CFA 1994-95 *William A. Hayes 1995-97 Vincent C. Catalano 1997-99 John J. McCabe 1999-01 Jeffrey L. Evans 2001-03 Dodge O. Dorland, CMT 2003-07 Jan Jackrel, CFA 2007-09 Nanci D. Morris, CFA 2009-11 Kathy A. O’Connor, CFA 2011-13 Mark Ukrainskyj 2013-2015 Alex Urdea 2015

*Deceased

Board Job Descriptions

Nominations Committee