One To World’s Conversations with World Leaders program is a series of face-to-face meetings with CEOs, philanthropists, civic leaders, and other influential New Yorkers. They wish to engage Fulbright and international students in an exchange of ideas and life stories.

This December, we invite interested Fulbright and international students to meet Esther Benjamin, CEO and Executive Director of World Education Services.

Esther T. Benjamin has been a global executive in the public, private, and civil society sectors for more than 25 years. Before joining WES as CEO and executive director, Esther worked with Laureate Education, Inc., a leading global higher education organization. Esther served as the Associate Director for Global Operations of the U.S. Peace Corps and held senior management roles with the International Youth Foundation and the International Partnership for Microbicides.

Please fill out this application form to apply. You will receive an email from a staff member if you are accepted to attend. If you have already received a confirmation email, please RSVP below.

One To World’s Conversations with World Leaders program is a series of face-to-face meetings with CEOs, philanthropists, civic leaders, and other influential New Yorkers. They wish to engage Fulbright and international students in an exchange of ideas and life stories.

This October, we invite interested Fulbright and international students to meet Eric Tokat, Co-President of Investment Banking, Center View Partners.

Eric Tokat is Co-President of Investment banking at Centerview Partners, a leading independent investment bank with offices in New York, San Francisco, Menlo Park, London and Paris. Mr. Tokat has been critical in helping to build Centerview into a preeminent advisory firm and positioning it for continued success.

As Co-President of Investment Banking, he works with fellow members of Centerview’s senior strategic advisory. Mr. Tokat has advised on more than 100 transactions over his career exceeding $500 billion in total deal value, including many of the most important, industry-defining life sciences transactions of the past decade. He is a frequent speaker on Healthcare industry trends and has been quoted in leading publications including The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Bloomberg News and STAT News.
Mr. Tokat has been involved in numerous educational and charitable causes throughout his career and currently serves on a number of not-for-profit boards including as: a trustee at the Brookings Institution, a member of the Board of Advisors at the IRC (International Rescue Committee), a member of the Board of Advisors at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, as well as a member of the Board of Advisors of Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Tokat received his BA from Bogazici University and MIA from Columbia University.

Please fill out this application form to apply. You will receive an email from a staff member if you are accepted to attend. If you have already received a confirmation email, please RSVP below.

One To World’s Conversations with World Leaders program is a series of face-to-face meetings with CEOs, philanthropists, civic leaders, and other influential New Yorkers. They wish to engage Fulbright and international students in an exchange of ideas and life stories.

This October, we invite interested Fulbright and international students to meet David Heleniak, Retired–Former Vice Chairman, Morgan Stanley; Former Senior Partner (CEO), Shearman & Sterling.

David Heleniak spent most of his career at New York law firm Shearman & Sterling (S&S), rising to be Senior Partner (CEO) in 2001. In 2005, Morgan Stanley asked him to be its Vice Chairman and a member of its Management Committee. He retired as Senior Advisor in 2018.

While at S&S, Heleniak focused on mergers and acquisitions and headed or co-headed its practice group for ten years. During that time, in addition to approximately $1 trillion of other transactions, he represented Sandoz and Citicorp in the creation of Novartis and Citigroup, the two largest mergers ever done at the time. Earlier in his career at S&S, Heleniak headed the firm’s Hong Kong office from 1981-84 and represented China in its first major transaction with the Western world, a joint venture with Occidental Petroleum.

From 1977-79, Heleniak served the Carter Administration in the Treasury Department, first as Executive Assistant to the Deputy Secretary and then as the Assistant General Counsel. Among numerous other matters, he negotiated “Carter Bonds” with the German and Swiss Central Banks, the first time the United States issued foreign currency denominated bonds publicly abroad.

Heleniak has been active in many not-for-profit organizations: in education, advisory boards at Michigan (LSA, Provost, African Studies Center, University Musical Society), the London School of Economics, Columbia Law School, Emory, and Tulane; in civic affairs, NYC Partnership and its Investment Fund; in bilateral associations, Chairman of the Counsel for the United States & Italy and of Japan Society of New York; in the arts, President of NYC Ballet and of the MacDowell Artists’ Colony; and in social service, Room to Grow (chairman), In Motion, and Legal Aid Society.

He received an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics (LSE) and J.D. from Columbia University. Heleniak is an honorary fellow of the LSE.

An instructor of Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire from 1969 to 1971, Mr. Heleniak has been active in education in a number of advisory capacities, including President Obama’s education policy committee during the 2008 election. As former U.S. Chairman of the Council for the United States and Italy, he worked to develop positive relations between these two countries, and through board membership and philanthropy to the New York City Partnership, the New York City Ballet, The Japan Society and other vital organizations, he brings a global view to local endeavors as well.

Mr. Heleniak received a BA from the University of Michigan, an MS in Economics from the London School of Economics, and a JD from Columbia Law School. In May 2010, Mr. Heleniak was honored at One To World’s annual Fulbright Awards Dinner.

Please fill out this application form to apply. You will receive an email from a staff member if you are accepted to attend. If you have already received a confirmation email, please RSVP below.

One To World’s Conversations with World Leaders program is a series of face-to-face meetings with CEOs, philanthropists, civic leaders, and other influential New Yorkers. They wish to engage Fulbright students in an exchange of ideas and life stories.

This October, we invite interested students to meet Ranesh Ramanathan, Partner, Capital Solutions, Akin.

Ranesh is the leader of Akin’s globally integrated capital solutions team. With a global practice and platform, Ranesh provides bespoke capital solutions to a broad array of clients. He helps companies raise capital and investors deploy capital in complex situations across debt & equity, hybrid and structured solutions, joint ventures, rollups and spinouts.

Ranesh has a particular focus on creative investment structures tailored to private capital investors and public and private companies. He helps clients to find the right mix of debt, equity or hybrid solutions.

Drawing on his deep and diverse experience across the full spectrum of issues facing private capital investors, Ranesh represents some of the world’s largest global asset managers on a wide variety of matters, as well as advising private equity firms and their portfolio companies in a range of traditional large cap and middle-market acquisition and financing transactions. Ranesh has extensive experience negotiating, structuring and managing complex transactions globally—across the United States, Europe, Asia and Australia—including acquiring diverse multijurisdictional portfolios of assets, extracting entire business units from distressed sellers and structuring other multinational, cross-border transactions and deals.
In addition to his work across the investment spectrum, Ranesh has managed the legal aspects of investments in publicly traded and pre-IPO companies, and has worked with a variety of fund types, including closed-ended, open-ended and managed accounts in a wide variety of strategies.

Ranesh returned to private practice in 2018 after nearly 15 years in in-house legal roles with Bain Capital and Citigroup. Ranesh was a managing director at Bain Capital and general counsel to Bain Capital’s credit and public markets businesses.

Please fill out this application form to apply. You will receive an email from a staff member if you are accepted to attend. If you have already received a confirmation email, please RSVP below.

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