Alumni Class Notes

  • John “Rut” Rutkowski III ’76 states that his design and Commerce years at UVA have guided him through five businesses and a long career.

  • Chris Stanley ’76 was recently named Professor Emeritus in the Department of Theology and Franciscan Studies at St. Bonaventure University in western New York. He retired from the university in 2021 after 22 years as a Professor at St. Bonaventure. Dr. Stanley has authored or edited seven academic books and two historical novels, together with dozens of professional articles and papers, in his 31 years in academia. He is looking forward to continuing his writing in retirement. He lives in Allegany, NY, but plans to move to Southern California in the next year.

  • Nicole Darden Ford (M.S. in MIT ’07) joined Rockwell Automation Inc. (NYSE: ROK), the world’s largest company dedicated to industrial automation and digital transformation, as Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer, on March 21, 2022.

    Darden Ford joins Rockwell from Carrier, where she was Global Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer, overseeing global Information Security, Compliance, and Product (IoT) Cybersecurity through the company’s spin-off from parent company United Technologies Corporation. Prior to Carrier, she was Global Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer for Baxter International, where she had global responsibility for Information Security, Information Governance and IT Quality Compliance. Darden Ford began her career in the U.S. military and federal government, including for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, handling security, network engineering, and telecommunications.

    “I am excited about the energy, perspective, and expertise Nicole brings to this critical area and look forward to her contributions in executing our growth, digital transformation, and cybersecurity strategies,” said Chris Nardecchia, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Rockwell Automation. “With over 20 years in IT leadership, Nicole’s extensive knowledge and application experience in forensics, digital transformation, and homeland security practices is a valuable addition to our team.”

    Darden Ford is also passionate about building and growing teams, fostering culture, and focusing on diversity, equity and inclusion. She currently serves on the boards of IT-ISAC, South Florida Tech Hub, and the Lola Mercedes Parker Foundation. She will remain located in Jupiter, FL.

  • Cheryl Kong ’09 and her husband, Jeff, welcomed their first child, Emma, born September 2021. The family lives in New York City, where Cheryl works in real estate investment banking at Morgan Stanley and Jeff works in infrastructure private equity.

  • 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.