Genna Garver
Of counsel, Dorsey & Whitney’s Corporate Group
Genna Garver is Of counsel with Dorsey & Whitney’s Corporate Group and chairs the Investment Management practice. She has extensive experience representing financial institutions in transactional and regulatory matters and focuses on representing investment advisers, hedge funds and other private investment funds implementing various investment strategies.
Genna has received numerous awards: EB5Investor magazine's "Top 25 EB-5 Attorneys," 2013. Team Member, Corporate Board Member magazine and FTI Consulting Inc., one of "America’s Best Corporate Law Firms," 13th Annual Legal Industry Study, 2013.
Genna graduated cum laude from Bowdoin College where she majored in Government and Legal Studies followed by a law degree from Northeastern University. Genna is active on the board of St. Luke’s School Alumni Association..
Maria Jelescu
CEO, Ardinall Investment Management
Maria Jelescu is the CEO of Ardinall Investment Management, an alternative investment firm she founded in 2017. Prior to that, Maria spent 15 years at Goldman Sachs Investment Partners (GSIP) Group in the Investment Management Division. While at Goldman Sachs, she worked in the Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities (FICC) Division and the Goldman Sachs Principal Strategies (GSPS) Division in the Equities Division. Subsequently, Maria joined the Investment Management Division in 2007 and was named managing director in 2008. At Goldman Sachs, She served on the Operating Committee of the IMD Women’s Network.
Currently Maria is a member of the Advisory Board of the Center on Global Energy Policy and Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. She is a term member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Corporation Development Committee. Maria is a member of the Economic Club of New York and serves as a director on the boards of Girls, Inc. of NYC and Breakthrough New York.
Maria earned a dual degree in Economics and Management Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2004.
Ellie Reiter
Senior Associate Director, Youth INC
Ellie Reiter is a Senior Associate Director at Youth INC, a venture philanthropy organization that partners with over 70 NYC youth development nonprofits to build their capacity. Her responsibilities include managing a suite of board development programs including governance training, succession planning, the fiscal oversight institute, and the Get on Board program which matches corporate professionals with the boards of Youth INC’s partner nonprofits.
Prior to Youth INC, Ellie applied her program design, development and management skills as a Program Strategist at TYTHEdesign, a design-thinking based social enterprise and as a Program Officer II at the Institute of International Education.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Middlebury College and a Master of City and Regional Planning from the Bloustein School at Rutgers University. She was recently nominated to the board of the S.O.U.L. Foundation.
Virginia Reynolds Parker
Chief Investment Officer, Parker Global Strategies
Ms. Parker serves as Chief Investment Officer at Parker Global Strategies. Ms. Parker developed the MLP Top 20 Trax Index and also the PGS GI Smart beta Index both of which are licensed by major banks.. Her research is widely published, and she is a frequent speaker at industry conferences.
Ms. Parker was with Ferrell Capital Management. Prior to joining Ferrell, Ms. Parker served a Chief Investment Officer of a family office and has managed equity portfolios since 1982. Ms. Parker launched her career at Johnson & Higgins.
Ms. Parker currently serves as Chairman for the Board of Visitors (BOV) for the Nicolas School of the Environment at Duke University. Ms. Parker and her husband started an environmental entrepreneurial fund at Duke to support students with startup businesses. She serves on the Foundation Board of St. Catherine’s School in Richmond, Va., the National Board of the Speed Art Museum, the New York Landmark’s Conservancy Board including the Audit and Investment Committees. She is a founding member and Angel of 100 Women in Finance. Ms. Parker was inducted into the FX Hall of Fame in 2009 and was named among the Top 50 Women in Hedge Funds in 2010.
Ms. Parker graduated with an AB in Economics and Political Science from Duke University in 1980. Graduate of the OPM program at Harvard Business School and Women on Board’s program at HBS. Chartered Financial Analyst and a member of the New York Society of Securities Analysts and the CFA Institute.
Susan Stix Fisher
Susan Stix Fisher will be moderating the panel on behalf of BoardAssist, New York’s leading personalized board matching service and a partner of 100 Women in Finance that offers their pro bono board matching services to 100WF members interested in joining a nonprofit board.
Susan Stix Fisher, graduated from Duke University and worked in the fields of financial planning software and Wall Street equity sales. She then launched her own import-export company that manufactured women’s travel accessories in Vietnam and China, which she sold in 2010.
Over the years she has worked with a wide variety of nonprofits including The I Have A Dream Foundation, VP for Metropolitan Hospital’s Auxiliary and as a board member for Boys & Girls Harbor, Parents in Action NYC, Project Cicero, BUILD and others. Currently, iPalpiti Artists International, an organization promoting prize winning classical musicians; Project Cicero, a book drive that annually collects and redistributes over 150,000 gently used children’s books to under-resourced NYC public schools; the Sustainers Committee for the New York Junior League, and BUILD, a public school curriculum for at-risk teenagers teaching them entrepreneurship with the intent of keeping them college bound.
Susan lives in NYC with her husband, Charles Avery Fisher (son of philanthropist Avery Fisher) and CEO of Fisher Wallace Laboratories.
