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Posts tagged as “Goldman Sachs”

Former Goldman Sachs Partner Edith Cooper Joins Board of Directors of Etsy

Edith Cooper (photo via business insider.com)

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)
According to etsy.com, Edith Cooper, the former Partner and Global Head of Human Capital for Goldman Sachs, has been appointed to Etsy, Inc.’s Board of Directors, effective April 5, 2018.  Etsy, Inc. (Nasdaq: ETSY), is known as an online leader in the global marketplace for unique and creative goods.
“With Edith joining the board, we gain significant talent-management expertise, based on years of experience at leading global financial institutions. We are also honored that a person who called Brooklyn her home for many years is now working hand-in-hand with us to make our tech company even more successful,” said Josh Silverman, Etsy, Inc. CEO. “We are looking forward to Edith bringing her wealth of knowledge to Etsy, providing guidance as we continue driving growth and empowering the 1.9 million creative entrepreneurs who rely on our marketplace.”
Throughout her career, Ms. Cooper has used her broad experience in finance and focus on human capital to unlock innovation and collaboration in the workplace. At Goldman Sachs, she pioneered the use of data, analytics, and technology to maximize investments in people and leverage talent across the enterprise. She spearheaded Goldman Sachs’ groundbreaking company-wide conversation series on diversity and inclusion, designed to tie business goals to equity and social issues in order to empower all of the talent of the firm.  Cooper was also responsible for the recruitment, development, promotion, and well-being of the firm’s 35,000 people around the world. She has held various leadership roles as well at Morgan Stanley and Bankers Trust.  Cooper also is a member of the Board of Directors of Slack, the Museum of Modern Art and Mt. Sinai Hospital.
“Etsy’s mission to ‘Keep Commerce Human’ and its culture is revolutionary in the tech space. I have long admired Etsy’s drive to create value by investing in its people and fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace,” said Edith.  “I am honored to join the Board as Etsy continues to connect creative entrepreneurs with buyers around the world.”
With Edith’s appointment, Etsy’s Board has expanded, while retaining gender parity. She is also joining the Compensation Committee of the Board. Etsy was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York.

All Star Code Founder Christina Lewis Halpern Exposes Boys of Color to STEM Opportunities

All Star Code founder Christina Lewis Halpern with All Star students (photo via allstarcode.org)

via blavity.com
“We all want and need a seat at the table, and then we want to run the table and then we want to have our own table. Coding is the ticket to that,” says Christina Lewis Halpern, the founder of All Star Code, a six-week initiative for high school boys of color to discover innovative career opportunities through a computer science based curriculum.
According to Atlanta Black Star, the New York activist is the daughter of the late Reginald F. Lewis, a Wall Street attorney who became the first African-American to build a billion-dollar company. Her father, a Harvard graduate before dying of brain cancer in 1993, operated TLC Beatrice International, a grocery, beverage and household products distributor.
The month before he passed, Lewis named Halpern, who was only 12-years-old at the time, to the board of his foundation. “My family foundation is committed to social justice and believes in the power of entrepreneurship and investing in our community,” Halpern said. Two decades into the future and Halpern, a professional business journalist, created the All Star Code program “to help the next generation of youth catch the next wave of opportunity.”
So how did she do it? “We seeded this initiative and provided an anchor grant. About 20 percent of the money invested in All Star Code last year was from the Reginald F. Lewis Foundation, or Lewis family personal funds,” Halpern explained. Other donors included Bond Collective, Cisco, Comcast, Facebook, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Chase, MLB Advanced Media and Yahoo!. These corporations in addition to operational support gave $350,000 in funding.
Because of the lack of opportunities in STEM for men and women of color, Halpern’s All Star Code is designed to change that. The nonprofit raised more than $740,000 in 2016 at the annual All Star Code fundraiser in the Hamptons. Due to the generous contributions of the donors, the organization, which started in New York City and has stretched to Pittsburgh, has expanded and continues to grow rapidly.
The number of boys that participated in the Summer initiative skyrocketed from only 20 in 2014 to 160 this year. Halpern says that their goal is to have at least 1,000 high schoolers in 2020.
To read full article, go to: Daughter Of The First African-American To Build A Billion-Dollar Company Exposes Boys Of Color To STEM Opportunities | BLAVITY

Sean and Terry Torrington Create SlayTV, Media Network for Black Queer Community

Sean and Terry Torrington (photo via nbcnews.com)

article by Julie Compton via nbcnews.com
The term “slay” has important meaning to out director Sean Torrington. “To kill it, to be the best of the best, to always be on top,” he told NBC Out. It’s also the name of the 36-year-old’s new global media network for LGBTQ people of color.
SlayTV is the brainchild of Torrington and his husband, Terry Torrington, also a director. He said it gives a platform to black LGBTQ storytellers whose voices mainstream media often ignores. It also allows them to make money so they can “keep on creating the dope content they create,” he explained.
Torrington started his career as a Goldman Sachs project manager. After getting laid off in 2010, he took the opportunity to follow his passion for filmmaking and began creating web series on YouTube that centered on LGBTQ people of color. He said it’s a community that rarely sees itself reflected in gay or mainstream media.
According to a 2016 GLAAD report, cable and streaming platforms predominantly depict LGBTQ characters that are white (72 percent and 71 percent, respectively, in the most recent TV season).
“People would come up to us and be like ‘Oh, where can we see more content like this? This is really revolutionary, this is great,'” Torrington said. “I was like …’We need one central location for queer [and] trans people of color television.'”
Shortly after, Torrington created an app that collects selected content about LGBTQ people of color from YouTube into a single platform. “We literally within a month got 20,000 downloads,” he said.