Heath Brown, PhD, is associate professor of public policy at the City University of New York, John Jay College. For the past eight years, he has directed a social innovation and entrepreneurship fellowship at the College.

Nunzio Castaldo has driven the growth of Italian wines in the United States market for over 38 years. Nunzio began his career at Winebow, right after his studies, where he joined in 1986 as a sales representative covering Italian restaurants in Manhattan. In 1994, he created Winebow’s first Italian Sales Division, maximizing the Leonardo LoCascio Selections portfolio sales in the New York metropolitan market. Nunzio was promoted to Regional Manager of New Jersey and New York in 1997. In 2002, Nunzio was promoted to Senior Vice President of Imports at Winebow, overseeing supplier relationships and contract negotiations for import portfolios valued at over $100 ML. In 2014, with the merger of Winebow and The Vintner Group, Nunzio became Executive Senior Vice President of Portfolio Management of Leonardo LoCascio Selections, one of the three national import business units of the newly formed The Winebow Group. In 2015, Nunzio was inducted into the Italian Trade Commission’s Wines of Italy Hall of Fame, which honors professionals in the wine industry who have demonstrated a commitment to advancing the understanding, appreciation, and sales of Italian wines in the United States. In November 2017, Nunzio resigned from The Winebow Group after 31 years with the organization to launch his project, which was finalized with his acquisition of Panebianco Wines Import, a longstanding importer and distributor of fine Italian Wines in the U.S. market for over 26 years. Nunzio received his B.S. in Economics and Commerce from the University of Naples, Italy, and lives in New York City with his wife and two children

AIRI (International Association of Italian Researchers) New York Chapter board member. Physical Review E, Chief Editor, American Physical Society, USA. Dario obtained a Ph.D. in Physics from University Roma Tre, Rome Italy. He has performed research in the area of chemical physics and biophysics at Boston University, University Pierre and Marie Curie and École Normale Supérieure (Paris, France). He is a coauthor of numerous scientific articles published in international peer-reviewed journals. Since 2015, he has worked at American Physical Society as a scientific editor. 

AIRI (International Association of Italian Researchers) New York Chapter coordinator. Research Assistant Professor, co-Director, and Bioinformatics Lead of the Vertebrate Genome and Jarvis Labs at The Rockefeller University (NY, USA). Extensive experience in human and non-human genetics and genomics. Active member and leadership roles of several international consortia with a focus on genomics. Significant mentoring and teaching experience acquired over multiple years in European and US universities. Advisory and leadership skills acquired while serving in various university academic boards. Actively engaged in science outreach, including organization of conferences and meetings with national and international collaborators.

Theodora Fontas is the Managing Director at Chefs for Impact, a NYC based 501(c)(3) dedicated to educating the public on food sustainability in collaboration with chefs, farmers, and producers. Hailing from a family of farmers, Theodora has long understood the intersections of food and planetary health, and through her work with Chefs for Impact, is striving to create a nexus between producers and the public to create a healthier food system for both people and planet.

Gianluca is an expert in urban tech and finance with over three decades of leadership experience across public and private sectors, including as an advisor to New York City’s mayor on innovation and FDI. He heads DG Advisors, specializing in economic development, innovation ecosystems, and international business development. His clients include the City of New York, the EU Commission, Lendlease, Amundi, and the World Bank. Gianluca’s book, “Viva New York,” provides practical lessons on economic transformation and tech ecosystems and has been praised by figures like former Mayor Bill de Blasio, Urbanist Stefano Boero and legendary  venture capitalist Alan Patricof.

In the first 6 years of my career, I helped grow Autodesk's maker community Instructables.com from 6M to 32M unique monthly viewers. As a content creator I have written 115 do-it-yourself tutorials and gained 16+ million page-views. I have spent the past 10 years working in corporate innovation, design strategy consulting, and startup programming. I currently work at Cornell Tech, Cornell University’s technology campus in NYC and I am an instructor in the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps Program. In my previous roles I traveled the globe implementing corporate innovation curriculum and testing new business ventures for sovereign wealth funds, F500 brands, Ivy League Universities, technology startups, and major global enterprises. I have a BS in Computer Science from Union College and an MBA in Design Strategy from California College of the Arts.

Carmine Porello is currently the head of Banca d’Italia’s New York Representative Office, which monitors and analyzes developments in U.S. economic policy and the financial marketplace, also supplying relevant information on the Italian economy to the U.S. authorities, institutional investors and business communities. Activities of the U.S. Rep Office include coverage of the economies of Mexico and Canada.

Previously, Mr. Porello served as the Deputy Director of the Banca d’Italia Brescia branch (2018-2021); Advisor to the Minister of Economy and Finance (2013-2018); Attaché for economic and financial matters at the Embassy of Italy in Beijing (2008‑2013); and economist at Bank of Italy’s Bari branch (2001-2008).

Carmine Porello è il Capo della Delegazione dell'Ufficio di Rappresentanza della Banca d'Italia a New York, monitora e analizza gli sviluppi della politica economica e del mercato finanziario degli Stati Uniti, fornendo anche informazioni rilevanti sull'economia italiana alle autorità statunitensi, agli investitori istituzionali e alla comunità imprenditoriale. Le attività dell'ufficio di rappresentanza degli Stati Uniti includono la copertura delle economie del Messico e del Canada.

Jane Reisman connects the dots between Impact Measurement and Management in Impact Investing and the evaluation profession.  As the founder and former leader of ORS Impact , a U.S.-based evaluation and strategy firm, Jane developed a record of engaging in new frontiers and field building to scale impact.  Over the last decade, she has worked as a social impact advisor—engaging in field-building efforts to strengthen impact measurement and management -- with field leaders such as The Rockefeller Foundation, the Global Impact Investing Network, Mission Investors Exchange, the American Evaluation Association, OECD, Salesforce, and the Impact Management Project.   As a practitioner, Jane works with investors and companies to design and build impact measurement and management systems and evaluates innovative finance programs such as social bonds and guarantees.  Jane also regularly contribute to a growing body of literature and dialogues about putting impact at the center of impact investing.