Alumni Advisory Board
The Alumni Advisory Board sets the direction for the McCombs Alumni Network through involvement, engagement and feedback. For example, the Board identifies and implements top alumni strategic initiatives, advises the McCombs School regarding opportunities to enhance the Alumni Network and supports alumni chapters through attendance and feedback.
Robert Brady
Owner, Chef Instructor
Aquarelle Restaurant Francais, Texas Culinary Academy
BBA ’83
Currently, Robert is the Owner of Aquarelle Francais, a premier gourmet restaurant in Austin offering authentic French cuisine. Robert also works as a Chef Instructor for the Texas Culinary Academy. Robert has been an industry leader in the Austin area and has been awarded numerous times for his achievements in the culinary arts at both the local and state levels. He is also a contributor to several charities. Boasting his allegiance to The University of Texas and especially the McCombs School of Business, Mr. Brady has held functions at Aquarelle Restaurant Francais for the business school and will continue to make available his talents, contacts and facilities to enhance the future success of McCombs.
Suzanne Brown
Director, Strategic Alliances
GSD&M Idea City
BBA '96, Finance; BA '96 Spanish
MBA '04
Suzanne Brown currently works as a Director, Strategic Alliances, at GSD&M Idea City in Austin, Texas. Her role focuses on marketing partner relationship building to provide consultation to agency leaders for clients’ communication strategies. In addition, Suzanne works on strategic and analytics projects with senior leadership, especially in the area of business development. Before joining GSD&M’s Idea City in December 2005, she worked at National Instruments in Austin as a Direct Marketing Program Manager, providing strategy and educating her team members and other NI marketers on best practices.
Prior to attending the MBA program at UT Austin, Suzanne worked for over 5 years at agencies in Chicago, New York, Miami and San Antonio. She has handled various areas of marketing such as general advertising, international marketing, direct marketing and web strategy. Suzanne has become a truly integrated marketer through her work with primarily Fortune 500 companies, spanning eight different industries.
Catherine Flores
Director, Sales
Wholesale Markets World Energy
BBA ’02, Finance
After internships at Motorola and Target Corporation, Catherine began her career at Reliant Energy working as a Solutions Business Analyst. Her role focused on retail energy marketing support analysis and large commercial/industrial customers. While at Reliant, she was also responsible for winning several significant aggregations. Her next position with Entergy Solutions put her as Retail Consumer Manager of Commercial and Industrial Accounts. She was selected as the key transition team member to assist with sale and transfer of Entergy Solutions to Direct Energy. In 2006, she began her Energy Consultant position with LEGACY Energy Management Solutions. While there, she assisted with energy procurement and risk management for her client base, which included mid to large commercial and industrial accounts across restaurant, banking, healthcare, construction, transportation, large retail and municipality market segments. Currently, Catherine is the Director of Sales for Wholesale Markets World Energy in The Woodlands, TX.
Cesar Guerra de Leon
Internal Audit Consultant
Deloitte & Touche
BA ’07, Finance and Accounting, from ITESM, Technologico de Monterrey
MPA ’07 from The University of Texas at Austin
As a graduate of the Latin American Joint Academic Program, Cesar received a degree from both The University of Texas at Austin and the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM). Not only did Cesar spent his summers while in school interning both in Mexico and in the U.S., he has, and still does, a long list of activities ranging from events coordinator for the Tecnologico de Monterrey Accounting Student Society to volunteer for Mexico Rural Community Service. Upon graduation, he moved to New York City where he worked for Deloitte & Touche as an Internal Audit Consultant, specializing in manufacturing and retail companies, and developing and conducting internal audit specific projects. Cesar is currently working at General Motors as a CWIP Senior Analyst in Saltillo, Mexico.
Cesar’s list of activities, internships and accomplishments is impressive and he attributes some of it to the faculty. “The ability the faculty had to squeeze the most out of you. It was challenging and fun. It was awesome to learn that you are able to go the extra mile without even noticing.”
Nikki Hanley
WSS Commercial Paper Client Services Manager, Officer
JPMorgan Chase Bank
BBA ’04, Marketing
Upon graduation, Nikki moved to Chicago to begin her career, not in marketing, but in finance at JPMorgan Chase Bank as a Client Services Manager and Officer for the Commercial Paper Division. In her position, Nikki has many responsibilities including producing monthly Commercial Paper metrics (market analysis, business highlights and opportunities and project initiatives), developing and testing new systems and system enhancements, training clients on the web-based Commercial Paper reporting and much more. While at the university, Nikki was an active member of the professional business fraternity, Alpha Kappa Psi, and still makes sure to attend local alumni gatherings and watch Texas football at the Chicago tavern Brownstone.
“Get involved in business school and UT organizations. You are offered a chance to make friendships and gain knowledge and experience outside of the classroom—take advantage of it!”
Rick Harsch
BBA ’81
Vice President, Commercial Real Estate
Citibank, N.A.
Cindy Highlander
BBA ’81, Marketing
Upon graduating with her BBA in Marketing, Cindy began her career at Valero Energy Corporation as a Senior Gas Buyer. Cindy gained a great deal of valuable experience throughout her 13 years with Valero. She stayed with the company until 1994, when she decided to take a break from her career in order to raise her family. Cindy is very involved in her children’s school and has served as co-chair of a major fundraising gala and continues to accept leadership roles as a volunteer for the school. A strong supporter of UT, Cindy and her family enjoy attending UT sporting events and visiting the campus when they are in Austin. Currently, Cindy is an active member of Texas Exes and involved in the McCombs Alumni Network in Dallas.
Son Truong Hong
Program Manager
LiveOps, Inc.
BBA ’05, Marketing and Business Honors
Son kept very busy while in college, participating in many activities such as Texas Cowboys, Texas Blazers and holding internships with OMD, Gauvin and Hong and Sabre Holdings Corporation. Upon graduation, he went to Mercer Management Consulting in Dallas as an Analyst working in the commercial aircraft leasing industry. Currently residing in San Francisco, Son is a Program Manager at LiveOps Inc. evaluating new vertical markets for business expansion, providing analytical support across a wide variety of areas, optimizing and standardizing account management processes and synthesizing information to make recommendations for engineering feature improvements.
Son’s words of advice for future students is to “Stay hungry. Stay foolish. Never settle. ‘Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.’”
Kevin Judice
Regional HR Manager-OE and Change
Shell EP Company-Americas Region
BBA ‘80
Kevin graduated from McCombs in 1980 and over the past 28 years has gained seventeen years of experience in organization development and business transformation and eleven years of experience as a commercial contract negotiator securing rights to explore and develop oil and gas projects in the US and internationally. In both cases, Kevin increasingly took on more responsibility and attained leadership/managerial positions where he was accountable for delivery and performance of direct staff reports. He has worked extensively across Shell’s major businesses, E&P and Downstream Transportation and Retail, in many cases working at strategic levels of the organization.
Kevin has stayed involved with McCombs and the university since graduation as a member of Texas Ex’s and the Longhorn Foundation. He also is part of the Shell recruiting team for the university and McCombs and a frequent supporter of activities sponsored by BBA Career Services. His daughter is a new alumna as well, having graduated from McCombs in 2007.
Kurt Leedy
Associate
Banc of America Capital Investors
BBA ’02, Finance
BFA ’02, Spanish
With a Bachelor’s in Finance and Spanish, Kurt began his career as an Associate Consultant at Bain & Company and was later promoted to Senior Associate Consultant. While at Bain, Kurt had the opportunity to work on a wide variety of client engagements in Dallas and Mexico City. Kurt was a key player in creating potential profit improvement of $15 million for a large Mexican retailer, redesigning the organizational structure of a large industrial client resulting in potential cost reduction of $70 million, and performing cost analysis and benchmarking for a major domestic airline. In August of 2005, Kurt joined Banc of America Capital Investors as an Associate where his focus is on performing due diligence on new transactions, managing interaction with third parties, building financial and operating models and monitoring portfolio companies. Although very busy with work, Kurt finds time to serve the community by serving as a weekly volunteer reader and mentor at Mi Escuelita, a pre-school teaching English to Spanish-speaking children. Kurt remains involved with McCombs and has remained active as a judge and case author for the UT Undergraduate Case Competition.
Don Maranca
Practice Head
Gerson Lehrman Group
MPA ‘93
Upon graduation, Don spent his first four years as an Associate and Senior Auditor, first with Arthur Andersen in Dallas, then Maxwell Locke & Ritter in Austin. He moved to Dell Computer Corporation in 1997 as a Finance Senior Analyst where he managed and maintained freight, capital, headcount and operational expense budgets. In 1998, Don opened up Eventerprise, an event management company where he held several positions including Owner, President, CEO, CFO, CTO, Sales & Marketing Director and Administrator. In 2000, he moved to Applied Materials, Inc. as a Senior Manager of Process Controls & Integrity (PCI) Organization and then Smarter Solutions, Inc. in 2003 as Director of Finance & Operations. Since 2006, Don has been with Gerson Lerhman Group as a Practice Head for Accounting & Financial Analysis and Legal Economic & Regulatory Affairs Councils leading a team that manages an expert network of 22,000+ financial, legal/policy and economics professionals.
“My favorite business school memory is my membership in Alpha Kappa Psi and the life-long friendships I made there.”
Neal Meadows
Director-State Taxes
Clear Channel Communications, Inc.
BBA ’95, Finance
MPA ’97
After receiving both his BBA in Finance and MPA from McCombs, Neal has spent the past 10 years working in the tax field. After spending the summer before his senior year interning in corporate tax at The Walt Disney Company, Neal began his career with KPMG as a Tax Senior for four years and then spent time at Ernst & Young as a tax manager. For the past seven years, Neal has been with Clear Channel Communications as a director for state taxes. At Clear Channel, Neal is responsible for managing all aspects of the state and local tax function for the company. He has enjoyed recruiting new staff for his team from McCombs and getting involved in the San Antonio BBA Alumni Chapter Steering Committee.
Patrick Parker
BBA ’04, Accounting
MPA ‘04
Patrick took the prestigious MPA route at McCombs, majoring in accounting as an undergrad and graduating with his masters in five years. While in school, he spent the summer after his senior year interning at Ernst & Young in Assurance and Advisory Business Services and worked as Catering Captain for Pappas Catering for five years while in school coordinating events and managing a large catering crew of cooks, servers and bartenders. After graduation, Patrick moved to Dallas to work in auditing for Deloitte & Touche in the Assurance & Enterprise Risk Services. In the spring of 2008, he moved to Deloitte Financial Advisory Services as a Senior Associate in Forensic & Dispute Services where he advised clients on critical financial and economic events and transactions and assists attorneys in interpreting data. Patrick’s career is no surprise considering the classes he enjoyed most were Joe Wees’ Fraud Examination and Ed Summers’ Business Ethics.
Zachary Petrone
Associate
Providence Equity Partners
BBA '05, Finance, Accounting
Currently an Associate with Providence Equity Partners, Zach has a long list of experience that started when he was at McCombs. Zach's activities as a student included Co-Founder and President of the Texas Investment Baking Association, President of the University Investors Association, member of the McCombs Student Advisory Council and a Financial Columnist for the student newspaper. Upon graduation, he started at Greenhill & Company performing analysis for mergers, acquisitions, restructuring and other advisory transactions. In his current position, Zach evaluates private equity investment opportunities for a $12.1 billion private equity fund focused on media, telecommunications, entertainment and information services.
As someone who participated in many activities, Zach's advice to students is to "work hard, take challenging courses, get involved in student orgs, prepare for interviews and enjoy UT and McCombs along the way. It is a great experience, enjoy it."
Anne Robillard
Fundraising Consultant
BBA ‘97, Marketing
After graduating with Honors from McCombs, Anne began her career with IBM where she moved up in ranks from a Marketing Representative to a Senior Marketing Representative. While in California, she left IBM after 16 years and started at Kinko’s as the National Director of Sales. At Kinko’s, Anne managed and led a commercial sales force of more than 100 and increased the productivity, profitability and sales revenue of her team. In 1999, Anne came back to Texas as the Director of Marketing for the University of Texas at Arlington. For the last three years, Anne has worked with the Fort Worth Country Day School developing and implementing the strategy and team to achieve an $18 million capital campaign goal. Currently, Anne resides in Flower Mound, TX where she consults in fundraising.
Rohan Singal
President
Urban Estates, LLC
BBA ’06, Marketing
After receiving his BBA in marketing with a minor in advertising from McCombs in 2006, Rohan began his career in Houston as an Analyst for Accenture. He assisted in the establishment of a new budgeting system for a large retail company, worked closely with a telecom firm to create a new high-speed internet service to compete with Time Warner and acted as a tester for an energy company during the implementation of a firm-wide PeopleSoft upgrade. In November of 2007, Rohan left Accenture to found Urban Estates, LLC with the mission to create a one-stop-shop for real estate in New York City. Some of the services offered by Urban Estates include sales and rentals, corporate housing as well as full relocation packages. They also offer a discount program for UT alumni. Rohan has achieved an impressive list of clients, including Columbia University, New York University, Northwestern University, The University of Texas at Austin, The Yale Club of New York City and the Texas Exes. Rohan currently serves as Co-President of the McCombs BBA Alumni Network New York Chapter.
624 Palisade Avenue, Apartment 1
Jersey City, NJ 07307
(917) 349-2670
rohan.singal@urbanestatesnyc.com
Brook Syers
Senior Auditor II
LyondellBasell
BBA ’95, Accounting
With a bachelor’s in accounting, a master’s in criminology/criminal justice and a long list of financial and accounting certifications, Brook began his career at KPMG in Houston, TX. While at KPMG, he was responsible for audits for a wide variety of clients including trust companies, mutual funds, investment companies, banks, insurance companies and not-for-profit entities. When he left KPMG, Brook’s next position as a Senior Auditor with American General Investment Management required him to plan and implement audits in several areas including derivatives, mutual funds, trading operations and compliance. For three years, he worked with JPMorganChase as General Auditing Vice President, focusing on investment management and private banking. In 2005, he left auditing for a year to join Merrill Lynch as a Financial Advisor for their Global Private Client Group where he engaged in extensive client development, prospecting and consultative selling. Now back in an auditing role, Brook has been with LyondellBasell since 2006 working as a senior auditor.
“My tip to future students is to study hard and enjoy the college experience…it goes by too fast.”
Melissa Tucker
System Analyst
Hewitt Associates, LLC
BBA ’04, Finance
In her time at McCombs, Melissa stayed busy with the Business Mentors Association, University Finance Association, Undergraduate Business Council and two internships, one at commercial real estate firm Barshop & Oles and the other in financial services at Citigroup Global Markets. When Melissa graduated in 2004, she began her career at Hewitt Associates LLC as a Business Analyst and was promoted to Lead Business Analyst after only three months. In 2005, she was promoted again to Systems Analyst and is currently still with Hewitt Associates managing 14 associates in HR Outsourcing. Melissa is an active member of the Texas Exes Houston Chapter since she graduated and is chair of the McCombs BBA Alumni Network Recent Alumni Outreach Committee where she is charged with connecting with post-1995 graduates. She also reaches out to current students who are in Houston for internships or who will be relocating to Houston after graduation. Her professional success is sure to be a valuable guide for young alumni attempting to navigate their career paths.
Rad Weaver
Vice President of Business Development
McCombs Enterprises
BBA ’98, Finance
While at UT, Rad was a member of Phi Gamma Delta men’s fraternity, Silver Spurs service organization and maintained a leadership role in an athletic-based Christian organization. He was a letterman for four years with the University of Texas baseball team and led them to a Southwest Conference Championship. Following college, Rad began working as a Sales Manager for the Minnesota Vikings. In 2000, he joined McCombs Enterprises as Financial Analyst/Internet Director where he has participated in asset allocation of a five hundred million dollar equity portfolio and performs due diligence on Venture Capital deals. He created and manages McCombs’ automotive online solution known as redmccombs.com and has recently won, for the fourth year, the e-Dealer of the Year Award from AutoSucess.
Rad is now the Vice President of Business Development for McCombs Enterprises, as well as a Director of Mav Pac, Texas Lyceum and Texas Business Hall of Fame. He was named in 2006 as one of San Antonio’s Top 40 Under 40.
