Speaker

Raymond J. McGuire, AB ’79, JD/MBA ’84

President, Lazard

Dinner Chair

With a career spanning nearly four decades, Raymond J. McGuire has distinguished himself as a leader in the financial world as well as a philanthropist with a deep commitment to giving back and creating opportunity in the worlds of finance, art and education.

In 2020, Mr. McGuire left his role as Vice Chairman of Citigroup and Chairman of Citi’s Banking, Capital Markets and Advisory business to pursue public service as a candidate for the mayoralty of New York City. While at Citi, Mr. McGuire held a 13-year term as Citi’s Global Head of Corporate and Investment Banking, the longest tenure for this position in the history of Wall Street.

Prior to joining Citi, Mr. McGuire was the Global Co-Head of Mergers & Acquisitions at Morgan Stanley; Managing Director in the Mergers and Acquisitions Group of Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc.; and one of the original members of Wasserstein Perella & Co., Inc. where he became a Partner/Managing Director in 1991. He started his career in 1984 in the Mergers & Acquisitions Group of The First Boston Corporation.

Mr. McGuire has done extensive board service on both corporate and not-for-profit boards. He is currently a member of the corporate boards of the Hess Corporation, Vornado Realty Trust and KKR & Co., Inc.

Mr. McGuire holds leadership roles on several not-for-profit boards including: the American Museum of Natural History (Treasurer), the Black Trustee Alliance for Art Museums (Co-Chair), the Hotchkiss School (Vice President), the New York Public Library (Vice Chairman, Chair-Executive Committee), the Studio Museum in Harlem (Chairman), and the Whitney Museum of American Art (Executive Committee).

He received his M.B.A. and J.D. from Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School (1984), and an A.B., cum laude, from Harvard College (1979). He also attended the University of Nice, France while on a Rotary Fellowship (1980). He has had legal experience at the law firms of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom as well as Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler. He received a L.H.D. from Pratt Institute (2011) and a L.H.D from Dominican College (2017).

Speaker

John Hess, AB '75, MBA '77

CEO, Hess Corporation

Business Statesman Award

John B. Hess is Chief Executive Officer of Hess Corporation. Mr. Hess led the Fortune 500 company through a strategic transformation from an integrated oil company into a pure play E&P company. Mr. Hess previously served on the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board Quadrennial Review Task Force. He is a member of the Board of Directors of KKR & Company and the Board of Trustees at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is also a member of The Business Council, the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves on the Executive Committee of the American Petroleum Institute. In addition, Mr. Hess serves on the Board of Directors of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and on the Board of Trustees at Mount Sinai Hospital and The Economic Club of New York.

Mr. Hess holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. A member of the Board of Dean’s Advisors at Harvard Business School, he was also Chairman of the Harvard Business School Campaign.

Speaker

Michael Martin, MBA '15

Founder/CEO, RapidSOS

Entrepreneurship Award

Michael is Founder and CEO of RapidSOS, an advanced emergency technology company that powers safety, security, health and emergency response for 500M+ devices globally. 90+ tech companies and over 15,0000 first responder agencies rely on RapidSOS’ technology to power critical data and services across 165 million emergencies annually in four continents. Originally founded out of HBS and MIT in 2015, RapidSOS has raised $250M+ to date.

Michael has spoken at TEDMED and TEDx and been featured across national media including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, CNN, CBS, Fox News, TechCrunch, New Scientist, Smithsonian Magazine, and Popular Mechanics.

Michael holds an MBA from Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar and was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Healthcare list.

Speaker

Paul J. Zofnass, AB '69, MBA '73

Founder, Environmental Financial Consulting Group

John C. Whitehead Social Enterprise Award

Paul J. Zofnass is a proud alum of Harvard College, Class of ’69, and Harvard Business School, Class of ’73. He moved to New York City right after Business School and began working at Citibank, then joined Oppenheimer where he became a Partner in their investment banking group, specializing in private placements of securities. Paul then took off on his own and started the Environmental Financial Consulting Group which he built up over the next thirty years. In so doing, he combined his passion for the environment and conservation with his skills in providing financial and strategic advice to businesses.

Along the way, Paul played a major role in initiating Harvard’s Environmental Studies Program in the 1990s, helped design and fund a permanent New England Forest Exhibition at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, created the 150 acre Westchester Wilderness Walk preserve in Westchester County with almost eight miles of trails open to the public, initiated a Tree Identification program along the pathways of New York’s Central Park and created the Envision rating system at Harvard which measures the environmental sustainability of civil infrastructure projects. The Envision system is being used around the world, including the recent renovation of LaGuardia Airport, and has trained and credentialed more than 9000 engineers as Envision Sustainability Professionals under the aegis of the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI).

Paul served on the Boards of the Westchester Land Trust, Riverkeeper, Mt. Auburn Cemetery and ISI, while still finding time to sail every year up to Marblehead and Maine, ski wherever and whenever possible and hike the miles of trails of the WWW.

Speaker

Renee E. Ring

Chief Operating Officer, Environmental Financial Consulting Group

John C. Whitehead Social Enterprise Award 

Renee E. Ring is currently the Chief Operating Officer for the Environmental Financial Consulting Group, a company created by Paul Zofnass over thirty years ago and now run by their daughters, Rebecca Zofnass and Jessica Zofnass Barclay. Over the years Renee has had significant involvement with cultural institutions and with preservation and environmental issues which complemented her relevant experience and accomplishments as a corporate lawyer. After a long career as a Structured Finance lawyer, as a partner in several major New York City firms, Renee transitioned to management and financial consulting and the not-for-profit world. She first embarked on an encore career as the Director of Corporate Relationships for the Wildlife Conservation Society, headquartered at the Bronx Zoo, and then moved on to EFCG when her daughters took over the business. In addition to her work at EFCG, she currently serves on the Boards of the University of Virginia Law School Foundation, where she chairs the Executive Committee, the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure, where she chairs the Compensation Committee, the Westchester Land Trust, where she serves on the Land Preservation Committee, and the Historic House Trust of New York City, where she serves on the Executive Committee.

Renee enjoys the outdoors as much as Paul does, but she likes to venture beyond the Westchester woods. She has climbed Kilimanjaro, trekked the Salkantay Trail to Machu Pichu, hiked miles in Torres del Paine in Patagonia and reached Tiger’s Nest in Bhutan.