ND Business Briefings: November 2020 alumni news and updates

The MBA internship Adrianna Stasiuk (MBA ’12, BBA ’08) accepted nine years ago continues to pay dividends with her latest career move in Chicago’s wealth management industry.

Adrianna Stasiuk (MBA ’12, BBA ’08)

In October, she joined Aaron Wealth Advisors as an investment advisor and managing director. Prior to that she managed $500 million in client assets at JP Morgan Private Bank. Stasiuk first met Aaron Wealth’s founder Gary Hirschberg and got to know his work during her summer MBA internship at Goldman Sachs. The two have stayed in touch since.

At JP Morgan, a large part of Stasiuk’s focus centered on providing investment guidance to women. “In general, women who have come into wealth either through divorce or through death face really tough situations that require a lot of empathy and compassion, and I felt like I had connected particularly well with clients who were in those situations,” she said.

Stasiuk, an All-American and four-time monogram winner for the Notre Dame volleyball team during her undergraduate days, considers helping clients learn and grow as one of her strengths. “I consider myself almost like a coach for my clients in helping educate them but also making sure they’re well-positioned to achieve their goals,” she said.

“Some of my clients have never even looked at their investment statements,” she said. “I think confidence comes with understanding. Probably everybody can think of a time when they didn’t understand something, and so they avoided it. I find it so rewarding and important that women are just as confident as their partners in their financial well-being.”

Education is a theme in her volunteer work, as well. She serves on the auxiliary board for Chicago literacy program Reading in Motion and volunteers as a tutor with Chicago Lights.

Career news

• Andrew Aye (BBA ’90) was named Colorado market president for U.S. Bank.
• Kelli Marti (BBA ’92) was hired as managing director and CLO portfolio manager at Churchill Asset Management LLC. Previously, she was chief credit officer at Crestline Denali Capital.
• Neil Friery (BBA ’99) was appointed president and chief operating officer of Zynex Inc.’s monitoring solutions division. 
• Tyler Maertz (BBA ’00) was promoted to executive vice president of acquisitions at STORE Capital Corp. 
• Michael Diamond (BBA ’04) was appointed executive vice president and CFO at The Michaels Companies Inc. Most recently he was CFO for Pizza Hut U.S. market.
• Giovanni (Gio) Cordoves (MSA ’05) was promoted to regional president of the western United States for KBS. Previously he was senior vice president and co-director of asset management to regional president of the western United States. 
• Adam Moss (EMBA ’18) was named national marketing manager for Bank of America Business Capital. He most recently served as the head of asset-based lending loan sales and distribution for debt capital markets at PNC Financial Services Group.
• Sharla Lewis (MNA ’19) was hired as Notre Dame women’s basketball program manager.
• Timothy J. Wells (MBA ’19) was promoted to vice president of sales, economic and business development at American Electric Power. (news came out Nov. 4, could hold)
• Kate Edwards (MSM ’20) was hired as marketing cloud lead publisher with Morgan Stanley’s Next Best Action program.

Board of Director appointments

• Byron Spruell (MBA ’89, ND ’87) was appointed to the board of directors at Aon. Spruell is president of league operations for the NBA.
• Sean Cwynar (MBA ’12, BBA ’11) was appointed to the board of directors at American Community Bank & Trust. Cwynar is president of Action Health.

Honors

• Gerard Thoukis (MBA ’02), chief marketing officer for Foley Family Wines received the  2020 Wine Star Award for Wine Executive of the Year from Wine Enthusiast magazine.
• R. Ethan Braden (MBA ’07) has been recognized by the American Marketing Association as the 2020 Higher Education Marketer of the Year. He serves as senior vice president of marketing and communications at Purdue University.
• Ty Kimball (BBA ’13), Matt O’Brien (BBA ’14) and PJ Finley (BBA ’17) were named to the Commercial Observer’s Top 25 Under 35 list for commercial real estate. 
• The Ugly Company, a startup founded by Ben Moore (MBA ’20), was named to Poets & Quants 2020 list of Most Disruptive MBA Startups. His business tackles farm food waste by upcycling fruit that would have otherwise been tossed out into all-natural dried fruit snacks. Read more about his project here.

Submit your career news to Mendozabusiness@nd.edu.

Read October’s ND Business Briefings.