St. Bernard’s and Chapin Host a Networking Event

by Jonathan Perez ’96
On the first Sunday of the year, January 6, Chapin and St. Bernard’s hosted a professional networking event at the New York Academy of Medicine.  Attendees filled the room for a panel discussion followed by one-on-one tabling with leaders in various career fields.
 
The first event of its kind was hosted by the St. Bernard’s Old Boys Diversity Council (OBDC) and Chapin’s Alumnae Cultural Awareness Program (ACAP).  Both school alumni divisions are committed to helping graduates with career advice and mentoring, with a focus on inclusion and equity.  

The first part of the event featured speakers from both Chapin and St. Bernard’s.  The following speakers talked about their individual careers and gave advice to the crowd:  Justine Almada (Chapin ’01), Executive Director and Co-Founder of the HPV and Anal Cancer Foundation and former Chief of Staff to New York City Council Member Daniel Garodnik; Sibyl Anderson (Chapin ’81), Director of United States Medical Affairs in the Oncology Division at Bayer Pharmaceuticals; A.J. Houston (St. Bernard’s ’03), Global Equity Trading for the Royal Bank of Canada Capital Markets; Judith Ohikuare (Chapin ’07), freelance writer and Development Manager for NY Writers Coalition; and Jonathan Perez (St. Bernard’s ’96), Assistant District Attorney and elected member of the New York City Bar Criminal Courts Committee.  The panel discussion was moderated by Maximo Cubilette (St. Bernard’s ’02) who currently works as a consultant for Clockwork, a boutique financial management company.

The second half of the event included roundtable offerings in the following fields:  law, real estate, education and technology, finance and insurance, media and communications, nonprofit, and healthcare and medicine.  A special thanks to the St. Bernard’s volunteers who offered to be professional mentors:  Mike Allen ’09, Ben Anagnos ’82, Rodney Benson ’06, Dwayne Callender ’98, Zack O’Malley Greenburg ’99, and Miklos Vasarhelyi ’96.

The Old Boys Diversity Council envisions that this event be an inspiration for future joint school events with a focus on professional networking.  The mentoring developed at events such as these is intended to serve future generations of graduates as an invaluable resource as they progress in their careers.
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