Each of the 5 members of the 2008-2009 inaugural class of Donaldson Fellows at the Yale School of Management have had a profound impact in the organizations and settings in which they live and work, and each acknowledges the influence of their Yale SOM experience in making that impact.

Adam Blumenthal ’89
Managing General Partner
Blue Wolf Capital Management



Adam Blumenthal is a founder and managing partner of Blue Wolf Capital Management, a private equity firm that invests in opportunities in which carefully structured transactions can change organizations and create value. Blue Wolf focuses on companies in which government, labor, or financial or operational distress are significant factors.

Prior to founding Blue Wolf, Adam served from 2002 to 2005 as first deputy comptroller and chief financial officer for New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. In this capacity, he oversaw the capital markets activities of the Comptroller's Office, including management of the assets of the New York City Retirement Systems. During his tenure, the city's pension assets increased from $65 billion to $85 billion, primarily as a result of strong investment gains. Prior to his work in the public sector, Adam served in positions including vice chairman, president, chief operating officer, and chief financial officer of American Capital Strategies, an S&P 500 alternative asset manager (NASDAQ: ACAS), which he joined when it was a start-up immediately after graduation from SOM. From 1980 through 1983 he was a community organizer in Bridgeport, Connecticut; Jacksonville, Florida; and St. Louis, Missouri.

He received a bachelor's degree from Harvard College, and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. From 2004 to 2007, he served on the Yale School of Management Board of Advisors.

Laszlo Bock ’99
Vice President, People Operations
Google, Inc.



Laszlo Bock leads Google’s people function globally, which includes all areas related to the attraction, development, and retention of “Googlers.” For the last two years, Google has been named the Best Company to Work for in America and many other countries, the most desirable employer for undergraduates and MBAs, and the best company for women in technology. Laszlo has also testified before Congress on immigration reform and labor issues.

Laszlo joined Google from the General Electric Company, where most recently he was a vice president of human resources within GE Capital. He had earlier served as vice president of compensation and benefits for GE Commercial Equipment Financing. Before GE, Laszlo was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, serving clients in the technology, private equity, and media industries on issues of organizational design, talent acquisition and development, and cultural transformation. Laszlo’s client work also extended to broader business growth and turnaround strategy. Earlier, he had worked at another consulting firm, a start-up, and co-founded a non-profit organization working with at-risk youth.

Laszlo earned a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Pomona College and an MBA from the Yale School of Management.

Andrea Levere ’83
President
Corporation for Enterprise Development



Andrea Levere has led the Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED) as its president since 2004.  CFED is a private nonprofit organization with the mission of building assets and expanding economic opportunity for low-income people and disadvantaged communities through matched savings, entrepreneurship, and affordable housing.

At the helm of CFED, Ms. Levere developed an unprecedented partnership with the Federal Reserve System to address the inability of many Americans to build personal savings and assets. She guides CFED’s national initiative, I’M HOME: Innovations in Manufactured Homes, which addresses the challenges faced by the 17 million homeowners who live in manufactured homes by advancing market change through policy design and financial innovation.  She also oversees CFED’s largest program, a 10-year initiative to test and promote children’s savings accounts called SEED (Saving for Education, Entrepreneurship, and Downpayment), which has the goal of passing state and federal policies to create savings accounts for every child born in America as a means to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty.

Ms. Levere has added staff and resources to CFED’s policy and communications efforts. The organization is leveraging its biennial publication, the Assets and Opportunity Scorecard — the nation’s foremost benchmarking tool assessing how well each state builds and protects assets — into a national Assets and Opportunity Campaign that mobilizes thousands of practitioners, legislators, donors, and low-income savers to advocate on behalf of municipal, state, and federal policies that build assets for low- and moderate-income Americans.

Prior to joining CFED in 1992, she was a director with the National Development Council. At NDC, she was a lead trainer for the Economic Development Finance Certification Program and designed and conducted “Taking Care of Business,” a financial management program for entrepreneurs while also working with cities and states to structure financing for small businesses, affordable housing and urban development projects.

Ms. Levere served as chair of the board of the Ms. Foundation for Women from 2002-2005, after being on its board since 1998.  Currently, she serves on the endowment committee of the Center for Community Change and as president of ROC USA, a national social venture that aims to convert manufactured housing communities into resident-owned cooperatives to build wealth and financial security for homeowners.  

She received a bachelor’s degree from Brown University and a master’s degree in public and private management from the Yale School of Management. She was awarded the Alumni Recognition Award from the Yale School of Management in 2001 for exemplary commitment to the field of economic development and the mission of the Yale School of Management.

Ms. Levere lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with husband Michael Mazerov (SOM ’82), a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and their two children.

James Levitt ’80
Director
Program on Conservation Innovation at the Harvard Forest, Harvard University


James Levitt is director of the Program on Conservation Innovation at the Harvard Forest, Harvard University, and a research fellow at the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He also provides management consulting services to public, private, and non-profit organizations as president of Levitt & Company, Inc. His focus is present- day and historic innovations in the practice of land and biodiversity conservation, with particular emphasis on innovation in conservation finance.

Levitt leads the annual Conservation Leadership Dialogue sponsored by the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy and is the editor of From Walden to Wall Street: Frontiers of Conservation Finance, as well as Conservation in the Internet Age: Threats and Opportunities. He has written and lectured extensively in the United States and internationally on conservation innovation in the twenty-first century. He has served on the advisory board of the Long-Term Ecological Research Program sponsored by the National Science Foundation, and is an officer on the board of several conservation non-profits, including the Massachusetts Audubon Society and the QLF/Atlantic Center for the Environment.

Levitt is a graduate of Yale College and the Yale School of Management.

Elizabeth Thompson Serlemitsos ’93
Chief Advisor
National AIDS Council, Zambia



Elizabeth Thompson Serlemitsos leads the multisectoral response to HIV and AIDS in Africa as the chief advisor to the Zambian National AIDS Council. Serlemitsos works with the Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs, which provides leadership in strategic, evidence-based communication programs for behavior change to save lives, improve health, and enhance well-being.

Her work to increase funding to Zambia’s fight against HIV/AIDS helped support a program that provides free treatment to all in need. In 2004, there were only 3,000 people being treated for HIV. By the end of 2007, there were over 150,000 people on treatment, meeting more than 50 per cent of the need.

Since 1993, Serlemitsos has worked with the Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs, aside from two years as a technical advisor with USAID. Since 1996, she has worked in Zambia on governmental, non-governmental, and private sector public health initiatives. Interventions have included HIV/AIDS prevention, care, and support activities; malaria; maternal and reproductive health; and child health. The focus has been on improved care-seeking behavior and service delivery through a shift to include the provision of information and skills to individuals and the empowerment of communities.

From 1987 to 1990, she served in the Peace Corps in Cameroon.

Serlemitsos earned a bachelor’s degree from Middlebury College, an MPH from Boston University, and an MBA from the Yale School of Management.