2012 Fall Conference – NYC

NEW YORK —More than 200 journalists and others attended SABEW’s fall conference Sept. 27-28 at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism.

Participants, including students and academics as well as business journalists, heard from luminaries from business and government and also attended sessions ranging from the business of health care, to private equity, to social media.

The highlight of the two-day conference was the presentation of SABEW’s highest honor, its distinguished achievement award to Diana Henriques , veteran reporter at The New York Times and author of the best-seller, “The Wizard of Lies.” She was honored at a Thursday-night reception and participated in a public conversation about investigative reporting with Jill Abramson, executive editor of the Times.

“The sessions were great.  Every one of them,” said attendee Steve Pounds, a SABEW member.

 

Some highlights of the two days:

·      Lex Fenwick, CEO of Dow Jones, the opening keynote speaker on Sept. 28, extolled the value of quality journalism as media works through a continuing period of flux. In particular, he told interviewer Lisa Gibbs, “(Digital) is one of the greatest opportunities afforded to us.”
·      Robert Khuzami, the direct of enforcement for the Securities and Exchange Commission, often criticized for not moving aggressively enough against white-collar crime, got a zinger of a first question from interviewer Floyd Norris, Asked Norris: “So why is it that the SEC doesn’t put more people in jail?”
·      In a discussion of the business of health care, Sara Collins a vice president of The Commonwealth Fund, told the audience that actions surrounding the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, are very much still developing. “The new insurance market exchanges that are part of the act will be a hug change in the business.”
·      And Alex Wayne, a reporter at Bloomberg News, echoed Collins, noting that some states balking at the development of those exchanges might have a change of heart. “States will have enormous pressure to take the (federal) money. GOP governors may find that they really don’t want the federal government to take over their market exchanges.”

 

Distinguished Achievement Award goes to Diana Henriques

The award, which is SABEW’s highest honor, is given annually to someone who has made a significant impact on the field of business journalism and who has served as a nurturing influence on others in the profession.

“We could think of no one who meets this criteria more than Diana,” said Kevin Noblet, immediate past president and chair of the selection committee. “Her investigative reporting sets a high standard for all of us in terms of rigor and relevance. And she has been so generous to those who ask her help to become better professionals.”

A reporter for The New York Times since 1989, Henriques has largely specialized in investigative reporting on white-collar crime, market regulation and corporate governance.

She was a member of The New York Times’ reporting teams that were Pulitzer Prize finalists for coverage of the 2008 financial crisis and the aftermath of the Enron scandals.

 

Read the conference’s schedule.

See a list of attendees here.

Click here to see photos from the conference.


 SPONSORS

SABEW’s 2012 fall conference was sponsored by Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law, SABEW Chair, Missouri School of Journalism, The Commonwealth Fund and the Goldschmidt Foundation.

Conference Coverage

 

SABEW conference-goers salute Henriques

by DORIANNE R. PERRUCCI, journalist, editor and coauthor of the book Asset Allocation for Dummies.

For just a moment, the investigative reporter didn’t know how to answer the question. “You are drawn to dark corners,” said Julie Abramson, editor of The New York Times, leaning closer. “What fascinates you most?”  Read more…

Much Ado About Social Media with Sree

By JI HYUN LEE, freelance at The NY Times Co. and Hearst Magazines

Social media was the topic du jour for the 2012 Fall SABEW conference and leading the Friday morning panel was Columbia University’s Sree Sreenivasan, a longtime professor with a newly minted title, chief digital officer.  Possibly the most revealing, and entertaining moment of the workshop was when he began the lecture by casually asking the room which hash tag they were using to disseminate tweets for the event. Read more…

On being ‘direct, immediate and in the moment’

By NICK THOMPSON, journalism student at the University of Missouri

In describing the operation of a news organization, Gary Silverman, deputy U.S. managing editor of the Financial Times, likened it to a jazz band. Reporters and editors are to know their instrument. Together, the band works to be “direct, immediate, and in the moment.” Read more…

Restructuring: A Conversation with Lex Fenwick

By KATIE BRENNANjournalism student at the University of Missouri

Lex Fenwick seems to have a knack for switching up longtime tendencies. Earlier this year, he accepted the position of CEO of Dow Jones and Co. The move came after 25 years at Bloomberg. In his conversation with Lisa Gibbs of Money Magazine, Fenwick said making the decision was scary, “like leaving part of the family, knowing you will never come back.” Read more…

Making practical use of social media in the newsroom

By JUSTIN YANG, journalism student at the University of Missouri

Journalists must use social media to reach a wider audiences, a panel of experts told SABEW’s fall conference Sept. 27. Lewis DVorkin of Forbes and Emily Peck of the Huffington Post discussed in their panel how their newsrooms are utilizing social media, the debates that arise from using social media and emerging platforms. Read more…

On covering the nation’s fiscal cliff

By NICK THOMPSON, journalism student at the University of Missouri

An economics correspondent, Merrill Lynch economist, Bloomberg tax writer, and a tax lawyer all offered insight at the SABEW fall conference into covering one of the U.S. biggest policy conundrums: the fiscal cliff. Read more...

A Panel of Experts discuss the Challenges of Hiring in a Changing Media World

By KELSEA WASUNG, journalism student at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism

At the 2012 Fall Society of American Business Editors and Writers conference, a panel of three media professionals and experts, shared their views on hiring in the changing media industry and the skills needed to obtain a job. Read more…

Panel discusses the secrets of attracting an audience

By VIVIAN PADILLA, journalism student at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism

In today’s field of journalism the outlets for reporting are many, but rising to the top can be claimed if a loyal audience supports the organization. How can a newspaper, magazine, television program or online content thrive without a following? To hook the audience with content is key, but maintaining the viewers or readers is approached differently by each organization. Read more…

There’s room for all types of social media in the changing world of journalism

By BLAKE WILSON, journalism student at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism

The changing journalism requires the use of all types of social media. The Society of American Business Editors and Writers fall conference, in part, explored what role social media is playing in the currently evolving future of media. Read more…

Long time journalist receives SABEW’s highest honor

By CALE OTTENS, journalism student at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism

Tears of joy filled the eyes of Diana Henriques, a longtime investigative reporter for the New York Times, as SABEW’s Kevin Noblet presented her with the business writers and editors organization’s highest honor, SABEW’s distinguished achievement award. Read more…

Dow Jones CEO has positive view on journalism’s future

By KEVIN KELLER, journalism student at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism

A positive outlook for business journalism means that investment in it is definitely merited, Dow Jones CEO Lex Fenwick told SABEW’s Fall Workshop at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism in New York City. Read more…

There’s no room at SABEW for Debbie Downers when talking about the future of journalism jobs

By JENNER SMITH

“Journalism is really going through major changes, but there are jobs out there,” Greg McCune, editor in charge of Reuters America Service, said. Read more…

 

Once again, the home for the SABEW conference was the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism, located in the historic former home of the old New York Herald-Tribune at 219 W. 40th St. in midtown Manhattan.

SPEAKERS

 

Jill Abramson

Jill Abramson is executive editor of The New York Times, a position she assumed in September 2011.  She is the highest-ranking editor and first woman to lead the Times newsroom in its 160-year history.
Abramson was managing editor from 2003 until 2011.  As managing editor, she helped supervise the coverage of two wars, four national elections, hurricanes and oil spills.  She was also deeply engaged in the newsroom’s effort to change its approach to the dissemination of news and to expand to new and varied digital and mobile platforms.  Abramson joined The New York Times in 1997.  She was named Washington bureau chief in 2000 and served in that position until 2003.
Abramson worked at The Wall Street Journal from 1988 to 1997.  While there, she served as deputy bureau chief in its Washington, D.C., bureau and investigative reporter, covering money and politics.

 

Lex Fenwick

Lex Fenwick, CEO of Dow Jones  became CEO of Dow Jones in February after 25 years at Bloomberg. Fenwick joined Bloomberg in 1987 and spent much of his early years as manager of Bloomberg operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He served as chief operating officer of Bloomberg L.P. under Michael R. Bloomberg and, when his boss ran for mayor of New York City in 2001, Fenwick became chief executive. He later founded and led a Bloomberg L.P. subsidiary, Bloomberg Ventures.

 

 

Robert Khuzami

Robert Khuzami is Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement chief. For 11 years just before his February 2009 appointment as SEC enforcement division director, Khuzami served as a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
There he served as chief of that office’s Securities and Commodities Fraud Task Force for three years. According to the SEC, in that role, Khuzami “prosecuted numerous complex securities and white-collar criminal matters, including those involving insider trading, Ponzi schemes, accounting and financial statement fraud, organized crime infiltration of the securities markets, and IPO and investment adviser fraud.”

 

Andrew Ross Sorkin

Andrew Ross Sorkin is an award-winning journalist and author. He is a financial columnist for The New York Times and a co-anchor of CNBC’s Squawk Box. He is also the founder and editor of DealBook, a financial news service published by The New York Times.

Sorkin joined The Times full time in 1999 as the newspaper’s European mergers and acquisitions reporter, based in London, and the following year became The Times’ chief mergers and acquisitions reporter, based in New York, a position he still holds.

 

Bethany McLean

Before joining Vanity Fair as a contributing editor in 2008, Bethany McLean was an editor-at-large for Fortune magazine. McLean is the co-author, with Fortune colleague Peter Elkind, of The Smartest Guys in the Room, exposing the corrupt business practices of Enron officials. The book was the result of reporting she did for Fortune. The article titled “Is Enron Overpriced?” was published in the March 5, 2001 issue. The book was later made into the Academy Award nominated documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.

She co-authored a book with New York Times columnist Joe Nocera on the 2008 financial crisis titled All the Devils Are Here, (November 2010). It details the crisis and concludes that banks understood the big picture but continued with bad practices. McLean is also a financial columnist for Reuters.

 Floyd Norris

Floyd Norris is the chief financial correspondent of The New York Times and writes a weekly column for the financial section.

He was named to that post in September 1999, after spending a more than a year as a member of The Editorial Board of The Times. He joined the paper in October 1988 as a financial columnist, a position he held until he joined the Editorial Board in May 1998.

Before joining The Times, Mr. Norris had been with Barron’s National Business and Financial Weekly since December 1982, where he began as a staff writer and subsequently was promoted to stock market editor. He began writing “The Trader” column in mid-1983 and was cited by the New York Society of Certified Public Accountants for outstanding reporting on accounting issues in 1984. In 1998, he was cited by the Financial Writers Association of New York for outstanding lifetime achievement.

 

Dr. Herbert S. “Pug” Winokur Jr.

Dr. Herbert S. “Pug” Winokur Jr. is a managing partner at Celerant Capital with over 20 years of private equity investment experience. Winokur founded Capricorn Holdings, Inc. and has been its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer since 1987.

From 1983 to 1987, he served as senior executive vice president, a Member of the office of the President, and Director at Penn Central Corporation. He served as president of American Financial Group Inc.. Winokur also served as senior management positions at Pacific Holding Corporation, where he completed over $8 billion in transactions and at The Palmieri Company. He also worked in the office of Secretary of Defense. Winokur has been a Director of various public and private entities.

Winokur holds Ph.D., A.M., and A.B. degrees from Harvard University.

 

Nik Deogun

Nik Deogun is the senior vice president and editor-in-chief, Business News, overseeing Business Day content, coverage and production.

Deogun joined CNBC in 2010 as managing editor, business news. He came to CNBC from “The Wall Street Journal,” where he was the deputy managing editor since July 2008. Deogun oversaw all financial coverage for the news organization and directed the Journal’s international network of bureaus and correspondents. Prior to this, Deogun was editor of the Journal’s Money & Investing section, where he oversaw coverage of Wall Street, banking, hedge funds, private equity, mutual funds, financial markets, investing and personal finance.

 

Nicholas Carlson

Nicholas Carlson is a deputy editor at Business Insider who has written extensively about Facebook, Twitter and Groupon, among other companies. He is a contributor to Bloomberg Television’s biography series “Game Changers” and a frequent guest on CNBC. Previously, he reported for Gawker Media’s Silicon Valley gossip blog, Valleywag. He got his start on the beat at InternetNews.com.

 
Lisa Gibbs

Lisa Gibbs is a Senior Writer at MONEY magazine, covering primarily insurance and real estate. Before joining the magazine in 2009, she was the Executive Business Editor of the Miami Herald. Gibbs is on the board of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW). She co-chairs the Best in Business contest and works on SABEW’s international committee.

 

 

Chris Roush

Chris Roush is founding director of the Carolina Business News Initiative, which provides training for professional journalists and students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also the author of two books about business journalism – Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication (2004) and Profits and Losses: Business Journalism and its Role in Society (2006) – as well as author or co-author of books about Progress Energy (2008), Home Depot (1999), Pacific Coast Feather Co. (2006) and Alex Lee Inc. (2006). He has also taught business journalism at Washington & Lee University and the University of Richmond.

He also was managing editor of the SABEW web site and blogs about business journalism at www.talkingbiznews.com. For three years, he wrote a twice-monthly blog called “The Roush Rant” for the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism, where he was a lead instructor for six years. He has also created a website on the history of business journalism and a web site for college students interested in careers in business journalism.

 

Jill Jorden Spitz

SABEW president Jill Jorden Spitz is assistant managing editor for the Arizona Daily Star in her hometown of Tucson. She formerly was the paper’s business editor, and before that covered Walt Disney World and Universal Studios for the Orlando Sentinel.

 

 

 

Kevin G. Hall

Kevin G. Hall, the former South America bureau chief, is the McClatchy bureau’s national economics correspondent. During a 25-year career he has worked in Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Saudi Arabia, Miami, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and has reported from across the globe. He is the 2004 winner of the Sigma Delta Chi award, given by the Society of Professional Journalists Award for best foreign correspondence. A member of the National Economists Club, Hall is also on the executive committee of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, the nation’s premier association for business journalists.

In 2010, he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for national reporting (along with colleagues Greg Gordon and Chris Adams) for detailing in 2009 how Wall Street sold out investors and caused the nation’s deep financial crisis. They shared the University of Southern California’s Loeb Award for that package. He is also the 2011 recipient of the Weidenbaum Center Award for Evidence-Based Journalism, given by Washington University in St. Louis.

 

Jodi Schneider

Jodi Schneider is the team leader in charge of tax policy and Congressional coverage for Bloomberg News, working from the Washington, D.C. Bureau. She supervises the team handling these coverage areas for various Bloomberg entities. Jodi joined Bloomberg in November 2010.  She has been a financial editor in Washington, D.C., for the past 17 years. Previously, she was local business editor at The Washington Post, an assistant managing editor at U.S. News and World Report magazine, and economics and finance editor at Congressional Quarterly.

Before coming to Washington, she was a deputy managing editor at the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel and before that, was an editor and writer at newspapers in Colorado and Wisconsin. Jodi is a past president and active member of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW).

 

Michael Hanson

Michael Hanson is a senior U.S. economist at BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research. Hanson has nearly 20 years of experience as an economist in financial markets, the Federal Reserve System and academia. In his current role, he is responsible for analysis of Federal Reserve and budgetary policy and modeling the U.S. economy, with particular emphasis on inflation. He meets regularly with clients across the firm’s business lines, publishes weekly commentary on economics and policy and has appeared in printed, radio and televised media.

Prior to joining the firm, Hanson worked as an economist in the Monetary Affairs division of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and as a senior economist at Lehman Brothers. He also has held positions at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Wesleyan University and Yale School of Management. He has published academic research in macroeconomics, monetary policy and econometrics.

Mr. Hanson graduated cum laude with honors from the University of Pennsylvania with bachelor’s degrees from both the College of Arts and Sciences and The Wharton School. He earned his master’s degree in mathematics at New York University and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan.

 

Deborah Brewster

Deborah Brewster is the deputy managing editor of The Wall Street Journal. She is responsible for training, recruitment and staffing in addition to the Journal’s use of design and graphics. Ms. Brewster joined the Journal in 2009 after previously working for 10 years as a journalist for the Financial Times where she was an editor and also a writer.

Before the Financial Times, Brewster was communications correspondent — from 1994 to 1998 — for the newspaper The Australian.

Before that, she worked at The Age newspaper, based in Melbourne, Australia. At The Age she was at first personal finance editor, and then the newspaper’s business editor, becoming the first woman to hold that position. She was in charge of the daily business section in addition to the property, personal finance and technology sections. She began her career in journalism as a writer for Australian Investment magazine in 1987.

Born in Indonesia, Brewster earned her bachelor of arts degree with honors from the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. She lives in Manhattan.

 

Sree Sreenivasan

Sree Sreenivasan is an academic administrator, professor and technology journalist based in New York City. In July 2012, Columbia University named Sreenivasan its first chief digital officer. Prior to that, he was the dean of student affairs and digital media professor at the Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. His courses focus on new media, web design and social media.

Sreenivasan helped found SAJA, the South Asian Journalists Association, a group of over 1,000 journalists ofSouth Asian origin in the U.S. and Canada, and served as its first president. Sree has also worked in local television in New York. From 2009 through 2011, he helped launch and develop DNAinfo.com, a hyperlocal news startup covering Manhattan.

 

Josh Tyrangiel

Josh Tyrangiel is editor of Bloomberg Businessweek. He joined the magazine following its acquisition by Bloomberg L.P. in December 2009. Earlier, Tyrangiel was deputy managing editor of Time magazine and managing editor of time.com.

Tyrangiel joined Time in 1999, holding various positions including assistant managing editor, national editor, and London correspondent. He was also a music critic for Time from 2001-2009. Tyrangiel attended the University of Pennsylvania and received his master’s degree in American Studies from Yale University. Before coming to Time, he worked at Vibe and Rolling Stone magazines and produced the news at MTV. He joined Time in 1999 as a staff writer and music critic.

 

Karen Danziger

Karen Danziger is a managing partner of The Howard-Sloan-Koller Group in New York City and directs the firm’s recruitment in the areas of cross-platform content and creative direction, as well as public relations and corporate communications. She leads business development and execution of searches for senior-level content, creative and communications talent across all media platforms, while also participating in marketing and general management searches.

Karen has a BA in journalism and political science from the University of Michigan.

 

Gillian Tett

Gillian Tett is a British author and award-winning journalist at the Financial Times, where she is the U.S. managing editor. She has written about the financial instruments that were part of the cause of the 2008 fiscal crisis. She was named Journalist of the Year by the British press in 2009 and won the Spear’s Award for Financial Book of the Year for her Fool’s Gold.

In 2007 she was awarded the Wincott prize, the premier British award for financial journalism, for her capital-markets coverage. She previously served as the newspaper’s Tokyo bureau chief, economic correspondent, and foreign correspondent. She speaks regularly at conferences around the world on finance and global markets. She has a doctorate in social anthropology from Cambridge University.

 

Greg McCune

Greg McCune of Reuters is a past SABEW president. He has more than 30 years of business journalism experience including more than 25 with Reuters. He has written and edited business news in five countries — the United States, Canada, Britain, Belgium and Australia. He was Reuters’ chief correspondent in Canada (1992-1996), Washington bureau chief (1996-2000) and Chicago bureau chief (2000-2004).

McCune was appointed training editor in 2004, with a key responsibility for career development and training for some 600 Reuters editorial staff in the Americas. He now serves as editor in charge of the Reuters America Service, based in Chicago. With SABEW, he also coordinated the Best in Business competition. As president at SABEW in 2009-10, he oversaw the hiring of a new executive director and the transition to a new office in Phoenix at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

 

 Julie Hartenstein

Julie Hartenstein has been affiliated with the Graduate School of Journalism since 1997, when she joined the adjunct faculty. Subsequently, she taught full time in the M.S. degree program, broadcast concentration for five years (RW1, Television News Magazine and Columbia News Tonight workshops) and joined Career Services as associate director  in September 2005.

Prior to coming to Columbia, Hartenstein spent 17 years at ABC Network News. She was originally hired as a researcher on the original staff of ABC News Nightline when it emerged as a nightly program from the American Held Hostage updates in 1980. For most of her 10 years on the broadcast, she worked as an editorial producer and field producer, covering a wide range of national and international stories.

Her next assignment was as a producer of American Agenda segments on ABC News World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. She also worked as an assignment editor, produced for Good Morning America, 20/20, helped develop correspondent talent for ABC News and has served as a freelance program consultant on various projects.In 1985 she was awarded the Benton Fellow in Broadcast Journalism at the University of Chicago, and spent 7 months studying clinical medical ethics.

 

Sara R. Collins

Sara R. Collins, Ph.D., is vice president for Affordable Health Insurance at the Commonwealth Fund. An economist, Dr. Collins joined the Fund in 2002 and has led the Fund’s national program on health insurance since 2005. Since joining the Fund, Dr. Collins has led several national surveys on health insurance and authored numerous reports, issue briefs and journal articles on health insurance coverage and policy. She has provided invited testimony before several Congressional committees and subcommittees. Prior to joining the Fund, Dr. Collins was associate director/senior research associate at the New York Academy of Medicine, Division of Health and Science Policy. Earlier in her career, she was an associate editor at U.S. News & World Report, a senior economist at Health Economics Research, and a senior health policy analyst in the New York City Office of the Public Advocate. She holds an A.B. in economics from Washington University and a Ph.D. in economics from George Washington University.

 

Joseph Baratta

Joseph Baratta of Blackstone is global head of private equity and a member of the firm’s Management and Executive Committees. Since joining Blackstone in 1998, Baratta has been involved in the execution of Blackstone’s investments in Universal Orlando, Nycomed Pharmaceuticals, Houghton Mifflin, Spirit Group and is responsible for Blackstone’s investments in Seaworld Parks and Entertainment, Merlin Entertainments Group and Center Parcs, among others. In 2001, Baratta moved to London to help establish Blackstone’s corporate private equity business in Europe. Baratta also worked at Morgan Stanley in its mergers and acquisitions department. Baratta graduated with honors from Georgetown University where he currently serves on the University’s Board of Regents.

 

Stephen Labaton

Stephen Labaton advises companies on issues at the intersection of policy and law. He founded Georgetown Policy Advisers, LLC in 2010 following a 23-year career at The New York Times, where he was a senior writer in the Washington Bureau.
In 2009 Mr. Labaton was part of a small team that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for a Times series, “The Reckoning,” on the causes of the market crisis. He won a Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism that year for the series. In 2003 Mr. Labaton won a Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism in the category of beat reporting for his coverage of the Securities and Exchange Commission. That year he was part of a team that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in the national reporting category. In 2008 Mr. Labaton won the Futrell Award for excellence in communication and journalism, an award presented annually by Duke University’s Terry Sanford Institute.
Mr. Labaton joined the business section of The Times in 1986 as a clerk and became a legal affairs correspondent in New York in 1987 for the business section. In the fall of 1990, he was transferred to the Washington bureau of The Times.

 

Cristina Alesci

Cristina Alesci covers private equity and deal making for Bloomberg Television and Bloomberg News. Based in New York, she also contributes articles to Bloomberg Markets Magazine and Bloomberg Businessweek.

Alesci broke news on the largest buyout deals of 2012 and interviewed some of the major dealmakers in private equity including Blackstone Group Chairman and CEO Steve Schwarzman, Blackstone Group President and COO Tony James, KKR co-Chairman and co-CEO Henry Kravis and Carlyle Group co-CEO David Rubenstein. She has covered the collapse of commodity brokerage MF Global, the challenges facing Bank of America and potential conflicts of interest in leveraged lending.

Prior to joining Bloomberg L.P. in February 2009, Alesci worked at Pfizer Inc. in New York and at law firm Sidley Austin LLP.

Alesci is a graduate of the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism and earned her undergraduate degree from Pace University.

 

Alexander Navab

Alexander Navab  joined KKR in 1993. He co-heads KKR’s North American Private Equity business and heads the Media and Communications industry team in the U.S. Mr. Navab serves on the Firm’s Management Committee, is the Global Co-Chair of the Private Equity Investment Committees and serves on the Capital Solutions Investment Committee. Mr. Navab played a significant role in the development of Borden, Intermedia Communications, IPREO, KSL Recreation, Neway Anchorlok, Newsquest Media, The Nielsen Company (formerly VNU Group), NuVox (NewSouth Communications), PanAmSat, RELTEC, Tenovis, Visant, Yellow Pages Group, Weld North, World Color Press, and Zhone Technologies. He is currently on the board of directors of IPREO, The Nielsen Company, Visant, and Weld North.

Prior to joining KKR, Mr. Navab was with James D. Wolfensohn Incorporated where he was involved in mergers and acquisitions as well as corporate finance advisory work. From 1987 to 1989, he was with Goldman, Sachs & Co. where he worked in the Investment Banking Department. He received a B.A. with honors, Phi Beta Kappa, from Columbia College, and an M.B.A. with High Distinction, Baker Scholar, Wolfe Award, from the Harvard Business School.

Mr. Navab serves on the Leadership Council of the Robin Hood Foundation: an organization dedicated to fighting poverty in New York City; he also serves as Vice-Chair of the Board of Visitors of Columbia College, Columbia University.

 

Lewis DVorkin

Lewis DVorkin is chief product officer of Forbes Media. DVorkin was founder and CEO of True/Slant, which was acquired by Forbes in 2010. The acquisition marked a homecoming for DVorkin, who previously served as executive editor of Forbes. He has also worked at AOL, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and even TMZ.

 

 

Emily Friedlander Peck

Emily Friedlander Peck is managing editor, business, of The Huffington Post. Peck manages all business and money content at the Huffington Post. Prior to that she served as an editor at the Wall Street Journal and WSJ.com and at IP Law and Business.

 

 

 

Martin Wolk

Martin Wolk is executive business editor of NBC News Digital. Wolk manages all business and money content on NBCNews.com and TODAY.com. Prior to joining the company in 1999, when it was known as msnbc.com, Wolk worked at Reuters. He is based in Seattle.

 

 

Amy Zipkin

Amy Zipkin is a seasoned and versatile business journalist who reports on management and careers, small business, business travel and personal finance. Her by-lines include The New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal special sections and others. She blogs about emerging business trends at www.amyzipkin.com.

From 2000-2010 she was a corporate contributing management columnist for The New York Times feature, “The Boss,” where her profiles ranged from John Chambers to Franklin Raines to Mark Thompson.

Amy received her B.A. in English Literature from SUNY Binghamton, studied 19th century British Literature at Exeter College, Oxford University and earned an M.Ed. from the University of Rochester, NY. Born and raised in The Bronx, New York she now lives in southwestern Connecticut.

 

Minda Zetlin

Minda Zetlin, president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, is a business and technology writer and speaker, a columnist for Inc.com, and author or co-author of five books, most recently The Geek Gap: Why Business and Technology People Don’t Understand Each Other and Why They Need Each Other to Survive. Founded in 1948, ASJA is an association of more than 1,300 of the nation’s most successful independent writers and book authors.

 

 

Jonathan Blum

Jonathan’s work regularly appears on TheStreet, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Entrepreneur.com and many other publications and websites. Prior to that he was a cable industry analyst for Kagan Media, and worked in various media and marketing capacities at CNN, Fortune Small Business, CNN.com, ABC News, CNBC, MTV and VH1. He sits on the board of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers and is a graduate of Columbia University in the City of New York.

 

 

Rosina Rubin

Rosina Rubin is chief operating officer of Attitude New York Inc., a high-end chauffeured transportation service on the city’s West Side. Since joining the company in 1990, she has helped grow a struggling small business into a successful enterprise with more than 65 employees. Prior to entering the entrepreneurial arena, Rosina spent six years in corporate communications at NBC, and several years as a freelance writer for publications including New York magazine and Premiere.

In 2010, she appeared on a SABEW panel discussing reform of health care, which she oversees in her business.  In her spare time, Rosina curates the work of her late aunt, painter Anna Walinska (1906-1997). She has curated seven exhibitions, including two in New York City, as well as the inaugural exhibition at the Center for Holocaust Studies at Clark University and an exhibit at the Ghetto Museum at the Terezin Memorial in the Czech Republic.

 

 

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