John Griffith has served Bryn Mawr College as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Treasurer for five years.
Bryn Mawr is one of the world's most distinctive, distinguished colleges. Every year 1,300 undergraduate women and 400 graduate students from around the world gather on the College's historic campus to study with leading scholars, conduct advanced research, and expand the boundaries of what's possible.
Since its founding in 1885, the College has maintained its character as a small residential community which fosters close working relationships between faculty and students. The faculty of teacher/scholars emphasizes learning through conversation and collaboration, primary reading, original research and experimentation.
John oversees the financial operations of the College, including the operating budget, the capital budget and the endowment. He provides strategic analysis and advice to the Board and to administrators on financial issues. He works with the College's endowment consultants and the Board's Investment Subcommittee to manage the College's endowment. The CFO works closely with appropriate committees, including the faculty Committee on Academic Priorities and the Committee on Faculty Welfare, and convenes the Campus Budget Committee of the Council on Institutional Priorities.
John received his M.S. in Finance from Bentley College in 1996 and his undergraduate degree in Business Administration from The Whittemore School of Business and Economics, University of New Hampshire, in 1987. He earned his CPA in 1989.
Previous to joining the Bryn Mawr community in September 2005, John worked in various financial capacities at the University of New Hampshire system for 15 years. For eight years he served as the Assistant Vice President for Financial Planning and Budgeting. From 1987 to 1991, John was a Senior Associate at Coopers & Lybrand, Manchester, New Hampshire.
Meredith Myers is a full-time faculty lecturer affiliated with the Management Department at the University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School. She predominantly works with the Wharton Leadership Division to co-instruct the core undergraduate course Management 100: Leadership and Communication in Groups. Meredith also completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania, in the dual-degree Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business. Upon graduation and after several months of studying negotiation in Mexico and conducting executive coaching in France, she matriculated directly into the Ph.D. Program in Organizational Behavior at Case Western Reserve University. Meredith's primary research explores how relationships evolve in international partnerships or strategic alliances between corporations and non-profit organizations. This work has taken her to various countries in Latin America, as well as India, Brazil, and the United States. Additionally, in the past year and a half she has co-developed and launched a private blog-site to support early career faculty in their transitions across universities. The success of this initiative has sparked her second research stream and entrepreneurial efforts focused on the potential for online networks to support employees entering new organizations and careers.
Bank of America is one of the world's largest financial institutions, serving individual consumers, small- and middle-market businesses and large corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset management and other financial and risk management products and services. Bank of America is among the world's leading wealth management companies and is a global leader in corporate and investment banking and trading across a broad range of asset classes, serving corporations, governments, institutions and individuals around the world. Bank of America offers industry-leading support to approximately 4 million small business owners through a suite of innovative, easy-to-use online products and services. The company serves clients through operations in more than 40 countries. Bank of America Corporation stock (NYSE: BAC) is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
Ken Kitkowski is a Director in Investment Banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he works with corporate clients to manage their long-term capital structure strategy. He is a member of the Corporate Finance group, which focuses on developing financing solutions in situations where traditional capital markets do not meet client needs or novel analytics help guide decision-making. Ken's clients range from private emerging growth companies to industry leaders like Pepsi and Pfizer. Key transactions he has worked on include Gilead Sciences' $11 billion purchase of Pharmasset, successful defense of Potash Corp. from a $39 billion hostile bid by BHP, WellPoint's $4.7 billion sale of its PBM business to ExpressScripts and numerous financing transactions raising over $25 billion across a variety of capital markets. Ken has been active in recruiting throughout his career, and has conducted hundreds of undergraduate interviews for investment banking analyst and other entry-level professional positions. Ken received undergraduate degrees in Electrical Engineering and Economics from a Philadelphia area school (not Bryn Mawr College), and began his career structuring and trading derivatives for Credit Suisse and Swiss Bank. He then attended law school at New York University and practiced intellectual property law in Silicon Valley at Wilson, Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati before joining Merrill Lynch in 2005.
Cambridge Associates is a privately held independent consulting firm that provides consulting and investment oversight services to more than 900 clients worldwide. We strive to help global institutional investors and private clients meet or exceed their investment objectives by offering proactive, unbiased advice grounded in intensive and independent research. To get the full story on Cambridge, visit: https://www.cambridgeassociates.com/about_us/our_history.html.
Andre Mehta, Managing Director, Cambridge Associates LLC
André is a Managing Director in Cambridge Associates’ Boston office. He advises a variety of U.S. and European families, pensions, universities, and foundations on issues such as governance, asset allocation strategy, manager selection, and investment program evaluation. His clients’ portfolios range in size from $200 million to over $100 billion. André specializes in constructing and overseeing hedge fund and other absolute return portfolios for his clients. André has authored a research report on rebalancing and has developed concentrated-holdings analytical tools for clients with large single stock exposure. He has been presenter at industry conferences on topics such as developing quantitative security selection and valuation models, starting an investment management firm, and constructing and managing portfolios.
Prior to joining Cambridge Associates in 2003, André was the Co-Founder and Portfolio Manager for both long-only and long-short strategies at Baker Investment Group. His work at Baker included the development of portfolio management and research infrastructure systems and the launch of the Charles River Market Neutral Fund, a long-short U.S. equity hedge fund. Prior to this, he worked at Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo & Co., where he co-managed the domestic and international tax-managed equity funds and was engaged in global asset allocation research and portfolio implementation. André has also worked in Yale University’s Investments Office, where he built models to analyze asset allocation scenarios for the endowment.
Samit Chhabra, Specialist Investment Consultant, Cambridge Associates LLC
Samit is a specialist investment consultant focusing hedge funds in Cambridge Associates’ Boston office. He works with a number of universities, foundations, pensions, and private clients in the U.S. and Europe ranging in size from $150 million to over $100 billion. He specializes in advising clients in the construction of customized hedge fund portfolios.
Prior to joining Cambridge Associates in August 2008, Samit worked in the Strategy Group of CIGNA Healthcare. Prior to business school, he was a Manager in the Asset Management practice of Ernst & Young LLP, where he focused primarily on hedge fund audits. He has also worked at Education Pioneers, a nonprofit institution focused on education reform.
PFM Asset Management, Philadelphia, PA. PFM Asset Management LLC (PFMAM) has a history of more than 25 years providing investment advice and portfolio management for government and not-for-profit organizations, corporations, pension funds and other institutions. As an investment manager, PFMAM brings a comprehensive approach to the business of money management. PFMAM manages both pooled investment funds and individual client portfolios designed to earn competitive yields, while maximizing safety and liquidity. To learn more about PFM Asset Management, visit: https://www.pfm.com/About_Us.
Jeanette Davidson-Flowers joined Public Financial Management as a Senior Managing Consultant in October 2005. She currently manages PFM’s training efforts, which include Consultant Training, Client Training, and on-going training for firm personnel. PFM’s Consultant Training program is a rigorous ten-week course for junior staff that teaches the fundamentals of finance, public finance, capital markets, quantitative analysis and financial modeling. PFM’s Client Training session is an intensive 1-week course, specifically for our clients, which addresses the same topic areas found in the Consultant Training program; both are offered twice a year. In addition to Consultant and Client Training, Mrs. Davidson-Flowers manages the firm’s on-going training efforts which involve educational webinars offered to firm personnel twice a month. Outside of her teaching responsibilities, Mrs. Davidson-Flowers provides transactional, quantitative and marketing support for various firm clients.
In addition to her work at PFM, Mrs. Davidson-Flowers currently serves as a teaching assistant to “The Business of Public Finance Investment Banking” course offered at the Fels Center of Government at the University of Pennsylvania. Additionally, she leads an introductory Excel class at Fels.
Prior to her public finance career at PFM, Mrs. Davidson-Flowers worked in the public finance department at a major investment banking firm and also at a local Philadelphia financial advisory firm. Additionally, she spent over four years at a major consulting firm in McLean, Virginia where she assisted federal clients in enhancing their operational and organizational efficiencies through business process re-engineering.
Mrs. Davidson-Flowers graduated with a B.A. in political science from Stanford University and an M.P.P. from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Daniel Kozloff is a Managing Director in Public Financial Management’s Philadelphia office and Manager of the Quantitative Strategies Group, which comprises a dedicated group of professionals who provide primary technical, new product, transactional, and modeling expertise for PFM's clients. The Quantitative Strategies Group is also responsible for the preservation and development of the proprietary analytical tools used throughout PFM’s various business practices. Additionally, as Manager of the Quantitative Strategies Group, Daniel oversees PFM’s firm-wide training program, which includes comprehensive sessions for new hires, current employees, lateral hires, and clients.
After joining PFM in 1999, Daniel has worked in multiple areas of Public Finance, including transactional support, technical and quantitative analysis, and strategic consulting.
He has provided transactional support on refunding and new money issues, as well as derivative products analysis for such clients as the State of Connecticut, the State of Michigan, the State of Ohio, the State of New York, Nassau County, NY, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Strategic Consulting clients to which Daniel has provided both general strategic consulting as well as quantitative and technical analysis include the District of Columbia, Fulton County, GA; and Nassau County, NY. Daniel has also been involved in the comprehensive restructuring of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Public Education Funding System as well as statewide tax reform to supplement the Commonwealth’s Education Funding. As day to day project manager of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s General Obligation financial advisory practice, Daniel has advised the Commonwealth on approximately $11 billion of debt issuance, including new money and refunding, long- and short-term, and tax-exempt and taxable (BAB) bonds. Daniel has worked with the New York State Division of Budget providing quantitative analysis for the New York Second Injury Fund. Daniel also provides primary quantitative support and analysis to PFM’s Tobacco Securitization Group as well as PFM’s OPEB Group.
Mr. Kozloff has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania.
Andrew McKendrick, a Managing Director in PFM’s Structured Products Group based in Philadelphia, specializes in advising clients regarding the use and application of derivatives and other hedging tools with a focus on risk management, as part of PFM’s swap advisory practice. He counsels on the use and management of derivatives and the application of these tools to create and apply the most appropriate structures for each client’s overall asset/liability management needs. Mr. McKendrick works with a broad diversity of clients including general municipal, school districts, public utilities, higher education and healthcare.
Prior to joining PFM in 2003 Mr. McKendrick served as Head of Swap and Option Trading at Sovereign Bank Capital Markets and Head of European Interest Rate Trading for Nomura International in London. He traded interest rate derivatives for the First National Bank of Chicago (now JPMorgan Chase) for over 9 years, ultimately managing the Euro Swap Desk in London.
A combination of direct market experience and the understanding of the particular needs and sensitivities of public sector and not-for-profit borrowers mean that Mr. McKendrick provides complete context for borrowers using derivatives in the management of their debt and other hedging needs He received a B.A. in Economics from Kalamazoo College.