Young Leaders Group
About This Group
The Young Leaders Group establishes an inclusive ecosystem for CFA Society New York’s Millennial and Gen Z generations including recent charterholders, exam candidates, and university students. The group is focused on developing members’ professional and leadership skills, fostering of new relationships, and cultivating an environment to learn from and work with one another. Initiatives include informal networking events, industry panel discussions, career development workshops, and mentorship programs, among others.
Chair: Rodrigo Cortez, CFA
Chair: Gabriel Nardi-Huffman, CFA
Vice Chair: Zhaoning (Elizabeth) Ren, CFA, FRM
Vice Chair: Kunal Hegde, CFA, CAIA
Vice Chair: Ray Updyke, CFA, CPA
Immediate Past Chair: Caroline Busby, CFA
Chair Emeritus: Maggie Wong, CFA
Join the CFANY YOUNG LEADERS GROUP on LinkedIn. NOTE: Group discussion forums are for the sole purpose of facilitating communication among members. Please do not use them to promote your own products, services, or business including publications, websites, and blogs. The views expressed by the members of the LinkedIn Groups do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of CFANY.
Rodrigo is an investment banking professional who works with clients in the power and renewable energy industry in the US and Latin America. Rodrigo has extensive experience in origination, structuring, valuation, due diligence, negotiation and documentation for M&A and Project Finance transactions. Rodrigo enjoys staying on top and discussing new trends in the clean energy and energy infrastructure space. Rodrigo is an advocate for education and actively volunteers to mentor high school and college students on career paths. Rodrigo graduated from University of Houston with a double major in Finance & Accounting and is fluent in Spanish. 
Alex W. Schumacher, CFA is the Manager of Finance and Regulation for Rally which is the first-of-its-kind platform where unique, high-value assets are securitized, split into shares, then offered as equity investments to users of all income levels. The mission: to democratize alternative asset investing by providing access, liquidity, and transparency to markets that have traditionally only been available to a select few.
Danielle McKenna is an Analyst at Apis Capital Advisors, a long/short equity hedge fund. Danielle is a generalist focusing on small- and mid-capitalization stocks in domestic and international markets. Prior to Apis, Danielle was a Research Associate at Axiom Investors, a long-only investment manager based in Greenwich, CT, where she also focused on small- and mid-cap stocks. Danielle graduated from Bucknell University with a BA in Economics and became a CFA Charterholder in August 2017.
Ray leads the operations, finance, and compliance functions for Alpaca VC. Prior to joining Alpaca, Ray was the CFO and CCO of Ampfield Management, an investment management firm. He graduated with high honors from the University of Maine with a BS in Business Administration with a major in Accounting and he also graduated from the University of Connecticut with a MS in Accounting. Ray is a Certified Public Accountant and a CFA® Charterholder and he has been a CFA Society of New York YLG member since 2018.
Kunal is a financial professional with 4+ years of experience specializing in hedge funds and insurance. He is currently an Associate at the Blackstone Group within the Alternative Asset Management department. His previous roles included Senior Associate at SS&C GlobeOp and Portfolio Underwriter at Chubb. Kunal graduated from Rutgers University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance. In his spare time, he enjoys volunteering with Rescuing Leftover Cuisine and mentoring high school and college students. He is a CFA Charterholder and a member of the CFA Society of New York, as well as a CAIA Charterholder and member of the CAIA Society of New York.
Zhaoning (Elizabeth) Ren, CFA, FRM, is a quantitative finance professional in the Global Scenario Generation team of Bank of America. She has previous experience in industry research and credit analysis. She received BS degree from Shanghai University and MS in Finance from University of Rochester. Outside work, she is a yogi, a cyclist, and an amateur chef in the making