David Cynamon P’22

David Cynamon is founder and executive chairman of K2 Pure Solutions, which manufactures water purification and disinfection products using safe, environmentally sustainable technology. K2 Pure Solutions helps provide an answer to eliminating the need to transport chlorine for water purification and disinfection, as well as other industries. In 1995, David acquired controlling interest in a single household cleaners plant called KIK Corporation and turned it into North America’s largest manufacturer of retailer and national brand consumer products in the household, personal care and over-the-counter drug categories. In 2001, David was recognized as one of Canada’s Top 40 under 40 by The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business Magazine, and in 2002, he was awarded the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the Canadian manufacturing sector. From 2003 to 2010, David was also co-owner of the Canadian Football League’s Toronto Argonauts, winning the Grey Cup Championship in 2004 and receiving the 2005 Magna Sport Executives of the Year Award. David has been honored by the B’nai Brith Foundation with its annual Award of Merit. Prime Minister Stephen Harper awarded David the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee medal, a commemorative medal created to mark the 60th anniversary of the accession to the thrones of Queen Elizabeth II. David currently sits on the boards of the Gerry & Nancy Pencer Brain Trust at Princess Margaret Hospital and the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, and he is co-chairman of the Sinai Health Foundation Board of Directors.

Darren Herman ’04

Darren Herman is currently a partner at Bain Capital in Boston and focuses on all things marketing, advertising, e-commerce and digital for the portfolio of investments, deal diligence and sourcing new investment opportunities. Prior to joining Bain Capital, he was based in Silicon Valley on the senior leadership team of Mozilla, makers of the Firefox web browser used by over 500 million, where he drove revenue diversification through the creation of new technologies and services including the internet's first privacy-respecting content recommendation engine. Darren joined Mozilla after spending close to a decade on Madison Avenue with the MDC Partners group of companies. He was responsible for all digital and media across the portfolio and started two successful businesses for MDC: Varick Media Management and kbs+ Ventures. Varick Media Management was a highly awarded programmatic trading company and kbs+ Ventures was a marketing and advertising technology investment arm of the holding company. Darren graced the pages of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, Fast Company and other periodicals for his innovative and highly successful work within MDC Partners. Prior to joining the MDC Partners family, he was a venture-backed entrepreneur within the advertising and video game space.

Dana Naberezny ’95

Dana Naberezny is the vice president of the Jewelry Design and Innovation Workshop at Tiffany & Co. A lifelong creator of jewelry, she received her first jewelry patent at age 12. Dana started her career at Tiffany & Co. in 1995 and, during an 11-year tenure, held various leadership positions in product development, supply management and product engineering. Dana left Tiffany & Co. in 2006 and stayed in the jewelry and watch industry, leading the product development divisions at David Yurman and Movado. In these roles, she oversaw functions of research and development, engineering, CAD, prototyping, project management and sourcing.  From 2014 to 2016, Dana served as an independent management consultant working on large-scale business transformation initiatives in the fashion and accessories industry. Leveraging her work on innovation speed and measurement from design to market, Dana re-joined Tiffany in 2016 and led the creation and launch of the Tiffany Jewelry Design and Innovation Workshop, which opened its doors in April 2018. This innovation center mixes craftsmanship with advanced technologies and allows designers, jewelers and engineers to collaborate side-by-side to bring Tiffany & Co. designs to life. Dana graduated from Skidmore with a Bachelor of Science degree in metal arts management, which was a self-determined major.

Kathryn (Katie) Peper, M.D. ’78

Katie Peper is a fellow of the American College of Physicians with a long and distinguished career in academic medicine with the Yale School of Medicine, Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City and Morristown (New Jersey) Medical Center. She now has a private practice that follows a philosophy of healing centered on the patient. Board-certified in internal medicine in 1987, Katie attended New York Medical College. Both of her daughters have entered the startup world. Lauren Platt is CEO and founder of Vensette, an on-demand beauty service that brings luxury hair and makeup artists to clients’ doors. Ashley Platt founded Luxholdups, a custom Lucite and brass home furnishings company with workshops in Brooklyn and a showroom in Manhattan. Katie graduated from Skidmore with dual degrees in biology and psychology.

Molly Dyson-Schwery ’04

Molly Dyson-Schwery is a licensed social worker and life coach, philanthropist, commercial and residential real estate developer and entrepreneur. Molly serves as an executive and an active board member for Dyson Kissner-Moran, a private investment corporation, and acts as a director of the Dyson Foundation, a nonprofit philanthropic organization that has supported myriad community organizations and social causes for decades in New York’s mid-Hudson Valley region. With an emphasis on supporting human services, education and health care, the Dyson Foundation seeks to improve the quality of life in the region, strengthen resources available to economically disadvantaged individuals and families and to strengthen the nonprofit sector. In Molly’s free time, she enjoys traveling and volunteering. Molly resides in New York with her husband, Benjamin, and son, Samuel.

Dexter Senft

Dexter Senft spent 42 years in investment banking, having managed research, economics, product development and electronic trading in the fixed income businesses of Credit Suisse, Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley. He retired from Morgan Stanley in 2015. At both Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley, Dexter oversaw strategic equity and other investments of approximately $1 billion. In this capacity, he has served on over a dozen different boards. Several of these startups have grown into multi-billion-dollar public companies. His early career was spent in quantitative finance. In recognition of his contributions to the development of mortgage-backed securities and fixed income derivatives, he was inducted into the Fixed Income Analyst Society’s Hall of Fame in 2004. Dexter is a graduate of Rice University with undergraduate degrees in mathematics and economics. He is a private pilot, crossword puzzle constructor and a bridge Life Master.

Rich Wartel ’91

Rich Wartel is CEO and founder of Two Labs Pharma Services. With more than 175 product launches in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, Two Labs has a national reputation for product launch, life-cycle management, market intelligence, market access and pricing strategy. Rich oversees the private equity-backed company that completed two acquisitions in 2018 and currently employs over 120 people in the U.S. and Europe. His ultimate life goal is to continue to help people and to make individual lives better. Rich and his wife are dedicated to improving the lives of others through charitable endeavors and have created the Two Labs Foundation, providing financial support to a variety of nonprofit organizations.In addition, Rich sits on the board of Run the Race Center in Columbus, Ohio, an after-school “home away from home" resource center for almost 400 inner-city kids. At a grand level, Two Labs enables him to help a broad group of patients access pharma products more easily through his work with pharma manufacturers. In the instances in which his eagerness to give exceeds the time he has to research causes or physically volunteer, he amplifies his effect on the community by empowering his employees to get involved. For this reason, he has created a perpetual culture of “pay it forward” by giving every Two Labs employee $1,500 annually to support any charity they choose, or even starting new charities when they feel the need is there. Rich has a Bachelor of Science degree in business from Skidmore College and a master’s degree in accounting from George Mason University.

Ceci Zak ’87

Following her passion of “being the change she wishes to see in the world,” Ceci is the COO of Gateway Proven Strategies, a world-class cannabis consulting firm in Denver, Colorado. Ceci is also a key member of the Genusetics executive team, which is spearheading an initiative to bring forth an easy-to-use, economical way of diagnosing early-stage Alzheimer’s disease, creating a new medical paradigm for a horrific disease. Previously, she was the COO of health care at DAS-Omnicom, managing profit and loss for the group’s 42 worldwide operating units, and held various senior executive roles at Sanofi, a top-five global pharmaceutical company, including general manager, business unit head and joint venture executive for the allergy, osteoporosis and hypertension franchises, as well as vice president of commercial capabilities. Prior to Sanofi, Ceci held a wide variety of sales, research and marketing roles at Roche Pharmaceuticals, and she was an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School for three years. Passionate about giving back to her community, Ceci spearheaded the development of OurBrainBank, the first nonprofit focused on turning glioblastoma from terminal to treatable. She is also chairman emeritus of the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association, a global nonprofit dedicated to furthering the advancement of women in health care worldwide. Ceci also teaches skiing at Beaver Creek during the winter months.

Linda Toohey

SKIDMORE TRUSTEE CHAIR EMERITA

Linda Toohey served for more than 50 years as an executive with the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce, retiring in 2012. Prior to joining the chamber, Toohey was president and publisher of The Saratogian, a Gannett-owned newspaper. She is the immediate past chair of the Skidmore College Board of Trustees, a position she held for four years. She served as a member of the board for 15 years. She currently serves on the boards of Saratoga Performing Arts Center, the Charles R. Wood Foundation and the Saratoga Foundation and Wellspring (domestic violence and rape crisis services).

Kenneth A. Freirich ’90

Chief Executive Officer, Health Monitor Network

As a seasoned entrepreneur and executive, Ken has successfully started, built, operated and grown a variety of world-class organizations. For the past 15 years, he has helped transform Health Monitor Network into becoming the leading patient-engagement company in the U.S. The company has grown tenfold since he joined the organization and the employee base has quadrupled over the past four years. The company has continued to be the leader in print patient education in physician offices around the U.S. and has now become a digital leader in exam rooms. In May 2019, Ken led the organization through a transaction that brought a significant investment to the company, led by WestView Capital Partners, to support and propel its dynamic growth.

Prior to joining Health Monitor Network, he was CEO of TransLocal Health Corporation. Previously, he was president of InteliHealth, initially a joint venture between Aetna U.S. Healthcare and Johns Hopkins, a leading consumer and professional health information, technology and commerce provider. He was also the founder and publisher of The Collegian Magazine while a student at Skidmore.

He attended Skidmore College and completed an Executive MBA certificate program at Columbia University Graduate School of Business, through the Thomson Information Publishing Management Development program.

Ken plays drums in a rock-and-roll band called MedROCK, sat in with The Who last fall and is an active international philanthropist. He continues to be inspired by all of the students in the business plan competition.