Career Management Center Professional Advising Staff for 2008-09
Students may elect to work with any advisor, no matter the advisor's area of expertise.
Karin Ash, Director of the CMC. Much of Karin's focus is towards external clients (employers), but she also spends considerable time with students, advising the Career Action Group, and holding individual student appointments. Karin has over 25 years of experience working with employers/students at five other universities as well as directing career services for all seven colleges at Cornell. She earned her Ph.D. in educational psychology from Cornell and has an M.S. in counseling and a B.A. in psychology. Areas of advising: Students are invited to discuss any issues, macro- or micro-level affecting their careers, including offer and salary negotiation. Also, advising for human resources, organizational behavior.
Kim Alexander, Associate Director. Kim, an alumna of the Johnson School, concentrates on employer outreach. She has over 17 years experience at Cornell in career counseling and employer relations. Kim was a business applications consultant for Yahoo!Resumix where she worked with the HR departments of over 65 national corporations. As project manager for the Johnson School's Just About Jobs events for the past several years, Kim coordinated the outreach efforts to over 500 employers. Areas of advising concentration: off-campus job search, technology, finance.
Tom Cleary, Associate Director. Tom is popular among students for his common-sense advice and for his remarkable memory of information about alumni, recruiters, and the marketplace. He has worked at Cornell for 12 years. Prior to his work in the Johnson School, Tom had an extensive career as an executive search consultant and he is a graduate of Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Tom manages the on-campus recruiting program and his areas of advising concentration: consulting, marketing, technology, and general management.
Laurie Sedgwick, Associate Director. Laurie has been providing career advising for graduate and undergraduate Cornell students for over 10 years. Laurie also has experience in an executive search firm and a biotech start-up. She had a six-year career with the U.S. Army Signal Corps as parachutist, jumpmaster, platoon leader, and company commander. Laurie received a B.A. in English Literature from Michigan State University. Areas of advising concentration: self-assessment, international students and any questions or feedback around CMC programming and Career Work Groups.
Donna Fleming, Assistant Director. Donna is an alumna of the Johnson School with professional experience in banking and healthcare. Donna manages the internal and external reporting of employment statistics for the CMC. Donna especially enjoys advising students who are making career changes, who have a background in healthcare, who are interested in sustainable business, or who are making career decisions based on family considerations. She holds an undergraduate degree in Nursing and an MA from the University of Virginia. Areas of advising concentration: energy, healthcare or biotech, non-profit, real estate and sustainable business.
Steve Calk, Associate Director. Steve's background includes seven years as an Investor Relations Officer and in-house M&A advisor in the technology, corporate finance, syndicated lending in the media and telecommunications sectors. In these assignments Steve was responsible for sell-side and buy-side communications, targeting during critical periods of M&A, capital raising and restructurings. Steve spent almost a decade in investment banking with JPMorgan, CSFB and Lehman Brothers. Steve earned his BA in Philosophy and Economics from Columbia University and his MBA with a concentration in Finance from the University of Chicago. Areas of advising concentration: students interested in finance careers.
Cynthia Saunders-Cheatham, Brand Advisor. In the role of Brand Advisor, Cynthia will be spending half her time as an advisor in the CMC working with students pursuing marketing, brand management positions and working with the Brand Immersion. Cynthia has over 15 years of marketing management experience on consumer packaged goods and business-to-business brands. Cynthia received her BS and MBA degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Areas of advising concentration: brand management and marketing.
Lawrence Wasser, Associate Director. Larry earned his MBA degree from the Johnson School and holds a BS in Computer and Systems Engineering from Rensselaer. Larry was recently a Strategy and Operations Consultant with Deloitte Consulting, where he leveraged his 11-year background in wireless product development and finance. He has worked within large wireless telecom players such as Nortel, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments. Areas of advising: consulting, general management and telecom industry.
