Alumni Highlights

GINA GROSSO (BS 1986) RECEIVED HONORARY DOCTORATE

Retired Lt. Gen. Gina Grosso (BS 1986), the first female personnel chief in U.S. Air Force history, received an Honorary Doctor of Public Service degree at Carnegie Mellon University’s May commencement ceremony.

Grosso served 32 years in the U.S. Air Force, retiring in 2018 as Deputy Chief of Staff for Manpower, Personnel, and Services. Her command positions included the first Department of Defense tri-service base at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J., where she led consolidation of 147 installation management functions and the real estate property merger of more than 4,000 facilities.

Since 2021, she has served as Assistant Secretary for Human Resources and Administration/Operation Security and Preparedness at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. She leads development and oversight of human capital strategies, policies, and practices while managing the department’s preparedness, law enforcement, and security capabilities for the nearly 400,000 VA employees, including 6,000 human resources professionals and 4,000 law enforcement professionals, across the nation.

Grosso participated in the Reserve Officer Training Program at Carnegie Mellon.

Cinkovic, Ramsey Named Tartans on the Rise

Tartans on the Rise celebrates recent alumni who are making an impact in their organizations and in their communities, across the nation and around the world through leadership, innovation, and career achievements.

Andrea Cinkovic (BSBA 2009) and Ramzi Ramsey (BSBA 2007) were recognized as Tartans on the Rise this year. Tartans on the Rise celebrates recent alumni who are making an impact in their organizations and in their communities, across the nation and around the world through leadership, innovation, and career achievements. Cinkovic is a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and Ramsey is a Managing Director at Blackstone Growth.

After starting as an intern in a summer analyst program more than a decade ago, Cinkovic has risen to Managing Director in the financial firm’s asset management group. She serves as a hands-on adviser and team leader for the mid-Atlantic region, covering institutional clients such as pensions, consultants, endowments, foundations, and other not-for-profit organizations.

Ramsey has been a Growth Equity Investor at Blackstone Growth since 2021. Previously, Ramzi partnered with consumer companies including Zillow, SeatGeek, Rover, and Nerdy. He has also led enterprise software investments in businesses like Qualtrics, Automation Anywhere, Ion, and OneTrust. At Blackstone Growth, he led investments in Cloudinary, Dynamo, and Hotel Engine primarily through the firm’s $4.5 billion fund, the largest first-time growth equity private fund in history.

Jaya, Schwartz Featured in Clear Admit’s Real Humans Series

Nandita Jaya (MBA 2021) and Tenny Schwartz (MBA 2021) spoke to Clear Admit, an online resource for MBA candidates, about how their graduate school experiences have benefited their careers.

Jaya, Program Manager at Microsoft, attended the Tepper School after working in infrastructure technology for more than five years. She chose to come to the Tepper School for its focus on technology and innovation. She said two things from her MBA experience have helped in her job:

“1. Case studies, where we talked about failures and mistakes as opportunities to learn from and plan ahead for, in our own careers; and 2. Frameworks that help me ground my thinking by, for example, bringing me back to first principles when I am too caught up in the day-to-day.”

Schwartz now works as a Finance Manager at Amazon, and he came to the Tepper School after working in power/energy for five years. He was glad that his engineering background was still relevant at the Tepper School.

“I found that Tepper was a place I could incorporate existing technical skills into the new skills gained during business school in an environment of close collaboration with my peers,” he said.

Bryant Retired as Leader of Computational Finance

After serving as the Executive Director of the Master of Science in Computational Finance program for 24 years, Rick Bryant (MSIA 1980) retired in June.

Bryant started as the program’s first dedicated staff member five years after it began as a partnership between four colleges at Carnegie Mellon. Over more than two decades, he built up its reputation, budget, staff, and buildings in New York and Pittsburgh.

Bryant led the program through the tumult following the 2008 recession when many alumni lost their jobs and new graduates had a tougher time finding work, and through the 2020 pandemic that moved classes online.

“In his 24 years as Executive Director of MSCF, Rick has overseen the transformation of a fragile start-up to a mature, highly regarded, professional master’s degree program,” recalled Professor Emeritus Steven Shreve in a speech at his retirement party. “We have all been blessed to have Rick at the helm of the MSCF ship.”

Robert S. Simon (BS/DC 1993) took over as Executive Director in July.

Wilson Inducted Into Accounting Hall of Fame

Gordon Peter “Pete” Wilson (MSIA 1982, Ph.D. 1985) was posthumously inducted into the American Accounting Association’s Hall of Fame in August.

Wilson served as the Sweeney Chair in Accounting at the Carroll School at Boston College until he retired in 2018. He joined Boston College in 1997, having previously taught at Stanford, Harvard, and MIT. He took pride in teaching students and mentoring fellow teachers while advancing the field of accounting.

“His overarching goals were to help students and other educators develop robust conceptual frameworks to navigate complexity and uncertainty; build relationship skills that promote effective and rewarding interactions with others; and gain a passion for lifelong learning. The aim was a more prosperous society,” the AAA press release explained.

Wilson died in 2020. He was married to fellow Tepper School alumna Carolyn Wilson (MSIA 1995), and they have two children and seven grandchildren.