Alumni Class Notes

Dr. Virginia Sharma ’99 recently joined Google Cloud as India Marketing Head after eight years in business leadership roles in consumer technology companies like JioSaavn, India’s leading audio OTT platform, and LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network. She also successfully defended her doctoral thesis on crisis leadership and gender identity in February 2022 and is working toward publishing her research findings in the coming year, alongside her academic mentors from the Indian School of Business.

Stephanie Mango ’94 (M.S. in MIS ’95), President at CGI Federal, has been named a Top 35 Exec to Watch in 2022 by WashingtonExec. As the newly appointed president of CGI Federal, Stephanie Mango oversaw a merger and organizational restructure within the first year of her tenure. Quickly building on CGI’s foundational elements to elevate employee engagement and inclusion, since stepping into her role, Mango has created a new diversity equity and inclusion executive leadership position, expanded employee resource groups, and enhanced member engagement programs.

Mohamed Vaid ’99 has been named Senior Vice President, Customer Service, Americas at Dematic. In this role, Vaid will lead the Americas customer service team, accountable for the care of Dematic customers through their entire lifecycle. Vaid joined Dematic in 2019 as VP, Global Solution Development. During his more than 20-year career, Vaid has demonstrated progressive growth to senior-level leadership, including executive roles in Dubai and Saudi Arabia with Saudi Cable, GE, UTI, and ALJ Toyota.

Addy Awofisayo ’07, Head of Music for Sub-Saharan Africa at YouTube, was recently featured on an episode of “A Seat at the Tech Table,” an interview series produced by Sisters in Tech that showcases Black women working in the world of tech. Topics included how Addy is shaping the African media space in her role at YouTube.

Laura Marshall ’98, Chief Operating Officer of European operations at Finastra, has been named a Top 25 Woman Leader in Financial Technology of Europe for 2022 by The Financial Technology Report. Marshall built her 20+ year career in the value engineering (VE) space and is passionate about putting customer value at the heart of everything. She was part of a pioneering VE team in enterprise software (at Siebel Systems) before moving to Oracle and then Misys (now Finastra), where she set up the VE practice. Marshall built Finastra’s VE function from scratch and created a dynamic department that is firmly embedded across the company. As a result of that success, Marshall became Chief of Staff to Finastra’s Chief Product and Technology Officer. Then, she took on the newly created role of COO, Europe, acting as an operational and strategic partner to the sales leader, responsible for governance of sales and pre-sales, strategic planning, and forward-looking activities. She has contributed to reshaping sales, pre-sales, and other go-to-market functions at Finastra to ensure that return on customer investment is the organization’s fundamental operating principle.

David Barr ’85, longtime franchise industry champion, has been named International Franchise Association Entrepreneur of the Year. Barr is a high-profile owner of several franchises as well as Managing Director and Partner in Franworth, a company that assists emerging and established franchises in reaching their goals. The IFA named its 2021 award winners at its 62nd Annual Convention in San Diego in February.

David Meredith (M.S. in MIT ’03), CEO of Boomi, is the recipient of the 2022 Ronald E. Carrier Alumni Achievement Award from his undergraduate alma mater, James Madison University. The award recognizes an alum who has demonstrated significant achievements of enduring value to society and is the highest recognition bestowed by the JMU Alumni Association.

A.J. Dudley ’91 was elected by the Virginia General Assembly to serve a six-year term as a General District Court Judge with Virginia’s 22nd Judicial Circuit (Franklin County, Pittsylvania County, and Danville City).

Peter J. Burns III ’77, Founder of Burns Funding and Millennial Queenmaker, was featured on the “Kim Pagano Radio Show” Feb. 26. The serial entrepreneur detailed the state of entrepreneurship and growing trend around entrepreneurs embracing passive investment businesses. Listen to the full interview here.

Susan Lilly Gerock ’04 has been promoted from Chief Information Officer to Senior Vice President at WashREIT (NYSE: WRE), which has increased its emphasis on data and technology initiatives as a focused apartment owner and operator.

William R. “Bill” Cogswell ’95 was promoted Feb. 19 to Senior Auto Underwriter in the Personal Lines Contact Center at State Farm Insurance Company.

Summers Hutchings (Nelson) ’10 (Darden ’15) has been promoted to Director, Product Delivery & Portfolio Strategy at CarMax.

Nazzareno Spurio (A&S ’15, M.S. in Commerce ’16), a Financial Planner at Prudential Financial, has been named Prudential’s National Sophomore Planner of the Year.

Grady Womack ’94 has been appointed to Head of Fee Businesses at AmTrust International. Grady will be responsible for driving the next stage in the development of AmTrust International’s MGA businesses, which include Amtrust Nordics, ANV, Arc Legal, Collegiate, and Qualis.

Rose Zu ’12 and her husband, Pablo, welcomed their first child, Ethan, in December 2021. They moved to the Philadelphia area in 2020 after three years in Boston and four years in NYC. Rose is currently Director of Investor Relations at AmerisourceBergen, a pharmaceutical distributor. She and her husband look forward to including her son in their travels.

Dina Tamimi ’99, Global Vice President, IoT and Network Security at Palo Alto Networks, has been named to WomenTech’s list of “100 Women in Tech Leaders To Watch in 2022.” She has nearly 20 years of experience in Global Fortune 100 companies. Prior to Palo Alto Networks, Dina led Honeywell’s Smart Cities and Vertical Industries team, driving value proposition development and developing Honeywell’s strategy as a global smart cities leader.️

Eric Goldwater ’02 (Darden ’09) has been named Chief Financial Officer of Introhive, the fastest-growing AI-powered sales and revenue acceleration platform. Having served in senior-level finance and operating positions within multiple companies, including Microsoft, Applied Predictive Technologies (APT), and SKDK, Goldwater brings extensive experience in large and small companies, public and private, corporate finance, capital markets and leading strategies in complex global and growing businesses. Goldwater most recently served as CFO of SKDK, the nation’s foremost strategic communications and media firm. While at SKDK, he served as strategic financial adviser for the CEO, COO, and the company’s management team. During his tenure, the firm grew 20% per year, and Goldwater led the acquisition of two firms that increased the size of SKDK by over 30%. Before SKDK, Goldwater served in senior financial positions at multiple high-growth software companies, including as Vice President of Finance at APT, where he established the company’s financial goals, managed financial risks, and oversaw strategic planning. Goldwater spearheaded APT’s initial public offering and led the financial due diligence which resulted in a sale to MasterCard in 2016.

David Meredith (M.S. in MIT ’03) has been appointed Chief Executive Officer and Board Director of Boomi, the intelligent connectivity and automation leader that instantly connects everyone to everything with its cloud-native, unified, open, and intelligent platform that serves more than 18,000 customers globally. Leading technology investors Francisco Partners and TPG spun Boomi out of Dell for $4 billion–one of largest software growth-equity deals ever. Boomi pioneered the intelligent use of data and has been named a Leader in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant for eight consecutive years. Meredith brings nearly 30 years of experience serving in senior executive leadership and board director roles across both multibillion-dollar public companies as well as PE-backed technology-focused firms. Meredith ranked Top 50 in the largest company category by Comparably for Best CEO (2020) and Best CEO for Diversity (2021) and earned a CEO rating of A+, measured across 60,000+ companies. He received a distinguished Globee® Award in the Visionary category as part of The 9th Annual 2021 CEO World Awards. In 2016, The Uptime Institute recognized David’s contributions to the industry by presenting him with their Change Leader Award. Georgia Trend Magazine named him a “Top 40 under 40 – Best and Brightest Leader” in 2008.

Kelly Thomas ’91 will join Alcoa Feb. 14, 2022, as Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer. She will lead all commercial strategies across Alcoa’s global bauxite, alumina, and aluminum markets, with overall responsibility for sales, procurement, marketing, and supply chain. Thomas brings more than 15 years of experience in the aluminum industry. She joins Alcoa from Vista Metals Corporation, where she is Vice President of Finance and has led strategic planning, corporate development, finance, accounting, and metal risk management. In prior roles, she served as Chief Operating Officer of Electronic Recyclers International (ERI) and in various leadership positions at Aleris North America Rolled Products, Reynolds Metals, and Alcoa Inc. She served at Alcoa Inc. for more than a decade in various management positions, including as Vice President of Alcoa Materials Management, where she led all commercial aspects of Alcoa’s European primary aluminum business, and as the Director of Metal Risk Management and as the Marketing Manager for the primary metals business unit.

Tyler Brown ’05 has joined Markel Corporation as Managing Director, Investments. Brown will report to Tom Gayner, Co-Chief Executive Officer. In his role, he will assist Gayner in the management of the company’s investment portfolio and manage investor relations. Prior to joining Markel, Brown was with Thompson, Siegel & Walmsley, as a Research Analyst, where he led research for a long/short strategy called WPS Direct. Before TSW, he worked at Lawton Park Capital Management, a long/short hedge fund, where he performed deep fundamental analysis on targeted companies for possible investment. His other experience also includes various roles at Bank of America and Merrill Lynch.

Avina Sugiarto ’10 has joined East Ventures, a sector-agnostic venture capital firm that has supported over 200 companies in Southeast Asia, as a Venture Partner. Avina will leverage her extensive experiences to invest in growth-stage technology companies and further drive sustainability and integration of ESG practices in East Ventures’ investments. She has over 12 years of experience in investing across alternative assets, including venture capital, private equity, private credit, and special situations across industries from technology, property, logistics, and natural resources to consumers and financial services. Prior to joining East Ventures, Avina was a Senior Vice President at Indies Capital Partners. She was responsible for deal sourcing, analysis, execution, and fundraising across Indies’ investment products. She was also a key member of the investment partnership with Varde Partners, a $15 billion global alternative asset manager headquartered in the United States.