Jim Whitney Economics 311

Monday, April 09, 2012
 

Economics-related panels for Oxy125

Entrepreneurship, Technology and Internet Start-ups

Date: 4/20/2012
Time: 2:00 PM to 3:15 PM
Location: Mosher 1
 
Zaryn Dentzel ’05 is co-founder and CEO for Tuenti, Spain’s most popular website, with 12 million users and 40 billion page views a month. After graduating with a double major in Spanish and diplomacy and world affairs, he moved to Spain and launched Tuenti after participating in a small California start-up that identifies the social potential of the Internet. Tuenti has grown into a leading European technology company with a staff of more than 250 people from 20 different countries and its own mobile solution.

Octavio Herrera '98 is a co-founder of AlphaGenius, Inc., a technology company that creates financial market trading strategies based on its analysis of social media data. The physics major also currently manages a hedge fund based on AlphaGenius trading strategies. In addition, he co-founded and sits on the board of directors for Jirbo Inc., a leading iPhone gaming company, which was sold to Insight Venture Partners in 2010. Herrera also co-founded anti-piracy technology provider MediaDefender, Inc., which was sold to ARTISTdirect Inc. in 2005. Herrera is an Occidental trustee and has been a member of the College Alumni Association Board of Governors and the Alumni Sharing Knowledge program.

 

Wall Street After the Crisis

Date: 4/20/2012
Time: 3:30 PM to 4:45 PM
Location: Johnson 200
 
Ian McKinnon ’89 is a managing partner of Ziff Brothers Investments and the president of ZBI Equities. Since joining ZBI, the public policy major and Harvard MBA has executed investments across various sectors and has guest lectured on investment topics at Columbia Business School, Dartmouth College’s Amos Tuck School of Business, and the University of Virginia's McIntire School of Commerce and Darden School of Business. He previously worked as an investment banking analyst with Merrill Lynch & Co. and as a consultant with Bain & Co. He has served as an Occidental trustee and as the chair of the Board’s Investment Committee.

Soroosh Shambayati ’86 was recently named managing director and global co-head of markets for Renaissance Capital, the leading emerging markets investment bank. Based in Moscow, Shambayati manages the bank’s fixed income, currency, and commodities sales and trading business in Russia, central and eastern Europe, Asia and Africa. Previously, the chemistry and math major with a master’s in philosophy from Yale and a Harvard Ph.D. in chemistry worked in similar positions for Nomura Securities, Lehman Brothers, and Citigroup. Shambayati originally intended to go into patent law, but a chance lunchtime encounter led to a job as a proprietary trader in the Latin American banking division of Bankers Trust New York.