Speaker

John Dionne

Senior Advisor - The Blackstone Group; Senior Lecturer - Harvard Business School

John D. Dionne is a Senior Advisor to Blackstone and a Senior Lecturer of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He is also a director of Cengage Learning, Clear Channel Outdoors, and Pelmorex. Mr. Dionne recently served as a member of the Boards of Directors of Caesars Entertainment, Momentive Performance Materials, and several other companies and not-for-profit organizations. He is also Managing Partner of Franconia Capital, a multi-family office focused on alternative investments.

Until he retired from his position as a Senior Managing Director of Blackstone in 2013, John was most recently its Global Head of the Private Equity Business Development and Investor Relations Groups and served as a member of its Global Private Equity Investment and Valuation Committees. During his tenure in this position, Mr. Dionne led global fundraising efforts of over $25 billion for three new private equity investment vehicles in the period immediately following the financial crisis.

Mr. Dionne initially joined Blackstone in 2004 as the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of the Blackstone Distressed Securities Fund, the firm’s initial entry into the single-manager hedge fund business, with peak assets under management of over $2 billion. During this period, he also served on the Investment Committees of Blackstone’s GSO and Kalix investment businesses.

Before joining Blackstone, Mr. Dionne was for several years a Partner and Portfolio Manager for Bennett Restructuring Funds, a multi-billion dollar hedge fund specializing in financially troubled companies. During that time, he also served on several official and ad-hoc creditor committees.

Previously, Mr. Dionne was a Partner at Saugatuck Capital, where he invested in middle-market buyouts and restructured troubled portfolio companies. From 1991 through 1996, he was Director of Corporate Development for a predecessor of Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. Mr. Dionne began his career at Price Waterhouse as an independent auditor of Bain Capital led leveraged buyouts.

Mr. Dionne is a Chartered Financial Analyst and Certified Public Accountant (inactive). He is also a part-owner of the NY Yankees AAA minor league affiliate.

A native of New Hampshire, John received academic honors while earning an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Science degree, magna cum laude, from the University of Scranton where he is a past Chairman of its Board of Trustees.

Moderator

Chitra Nawbatt

Chitra Nawbatt is a versatile multi-industry and multidisciplinary executive with a track record of leading, innovating and collaborating to drive results in dynamic competitive environments. Ms. Nawbatt has spent most of her career as a strategic multidisciplinary growth and change agent, building collaborative teams, processes and systems to reinvent culture, go to market strategy to execution, business and risk management, brand and external relations.

Chitra was the Global Head of Market Solutions at Genpact, an artificial intelligence, digital transformation, analytics and design thinking consulting firm. In this inaugural enterprise wide function, Chitra was responsible for driving new customer acquisition, partnerships, innovation and operational improvement. Ms. Nawbatt delivered strategic solutions to clients focused on revenue discovery, and business performance and digital transformation, specializing in financial services, technology, media, hospitality, consumer / retail industries. Chitra provided thought leadership and co-created various digital transformation services such as in credit and financial crimes risk management, etc. She was also a strategic advisor to the CEO, leading several growth initiatives and external stakeholder management, to drive Genpact’s pivot to a new growth identity, service lines and markets.

Previously, Chitra was the New York based Anchor for Reuters International TV where her broadcasts were seen by millions of households across the world. Her reporting focused on companies, markets and consumers in the U.S., China, Canada, Australia, Middle East and Africa, as well as the global economy. Chitra’s coverage and reporting were differentiated, thorough and substantive due to her holistic diverse research discipline and in-depth business domain from Wall Street.

Before her media career, Chitra was a C-level executive at Deutsche Bank, as well as held leadership roles in the areas of Global Banking and Regional Management. Prior to Deutsche Bank, Ms. Nawbatt established risk management functions at CIBC, and before that started her career at EY in Advisory and Assurance. Chitra has her Certified Public Accountant designation and was educated at Harvard Business School, Harvard University and Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto.

You can reach her on twitter @chitranawbatt.