Governance

Leanna Beaber started her legal career working at O'Melveny & Myers, where she specialized in securities, finance, and governance law, including serving as the in-house specialist on "blue sky" laws for the firm. She advised the heads of public and private international companies, as well as collaborating with multinational nonprofit organizations. 

After leaving O'Melveny & Myers, Leanna joined The Hunger Project and oversaw the design and development of an international participatory democracy community of practice.  She has continued her commitment to work that will make a positive social impact through volunteering.

Leanna grew up in California, studied in France in high school with School Year Abroad, and graduated from Stanford University with a BA in Intercultural Relations and an MA in Anthropological Sciences. She studied Mandarin at East China Normal University before earning her JD from New York University School of Law. 

An active WIS volunteer, Leanna has served as the Fund-A-Student chair for the WIS Auction, as a WISPA Primary School representative, and on the Annual Giving team. She is married to Jamie Beaber, a partner at Mayer Brown. Their two children are members of WIS Classes of 2031 and 2033.

David Brigstocke’s extensive experience in strategy, financial and risk management, product management, operations, and technology was gained over four decades working in financial services, principally with JPMorganChase. During that time he worked in London and New York covering capital markets, private equity, M&A, private banking, and corporate strategy, and was CFO of the Asset Management division for 12 years.

Since leaving JPMorganChase in 2016, David has consulted for Barclays Bank in London on a number of strategy projects. He also serves as a non-executive Director of Franklin Templeton Fund Management Ltd (UK) and is a Limited Partner Adviser for NYCA Partners (New York). Additional Board memberships include the US-based Foundations of Magdalene College, Cambridge and Westminster School, London.

David was educated in London, Washington D.C., Cambridge (UK), and Paris. He has an MA in Mathematics from Cambridge University and an MSc in Management Science from Imperial College, London. He and his wife Nancy live in New York and London and have three grown daughters.

Dr. Namandjé N. Bumpus was named as the FDA’s Chief Scientist on June 30, 2022. The Office of the Chief Scientist supports the research foundation, science, and innovation that underpins the FDA’s regulatory mission. 

Before joining the FDA, Dr. Bumpus was the E.K. Marshall and Thomas H. Maren Professor and chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She served previously as associate dean for basic research in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Bumpus’ research has focused on drug metabolism, pharmacogenetics, bioanalytical chemistry, and infectious disease pharmacology. Dr. Bumpus joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins in 2010 as an assistant professor. She earned a bachelor’s degree in biology at Occidental College in 2003, a doctorate in pharmacology at the University of Michigan in 2007 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in molecular and experimental medicine at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA in 2010.  

Dr. Bumpus currently serves as president-elect of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. She previously served as chair of the NIH Xenobiotic and Nutrient Disposition and Action study section.  

Her many honors include the Leon I. Goldberg Award from the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, the James Gillette Award from the International Society for the Study of Xenobiotics, the John J. Abel Award in Pharmacology from the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, which is the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on early career scientists and engineers. Dr. Bumpus is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She became a Member of the National Academy of Medicine, Class of 2022, one of the highest honors in the fields of health, science and medicine. 

Dr. Bumpus and her husband Conrad Risher have two children enrolled at WIS, a son in the Class of 2034 and a daughter in the Class of 2036.

Melissa Mileff Burnett is a design professional specializing in residential interiors and historic decorative arts. She has worked for several museums in Washington, DC and California, including in curatorial positions at the Textile Museum and the Monterey History and Arts Association.

Melissa has served on boards of several national and local organizations, including the Monterey Museum of Art, the American Institute of Architects, and the National Architectural Accrediting Board, and has advised other arts, educational, and political organizations. Currently, she serves on the board of Transformer, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit that supports emerging artists.

Melissa holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Oklahoma, where she was recognized as the Alpha Rho Chi recipient, and received her MA in the History of American Decorative Arts from Parsons School of Design. In 2016, she and her husband Jason moved back to Washington from California. Their son Sebastian is a member of the Class of 2030.

Leah Chang is an award-winning scholar, writer, and former professor. She writes group biography and literary non-fiction, with a focus on women’s history, and is the author of several books and scholarly articles.

Before leaving academia to focus on writing full time, Leah was a tenured member of the faculty at The George Washington University, where she was Director of French Literature and Culture and served on the Dean’s Council. She received her PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she was a Rackham Merit Fellow. She received her bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University in Connecticut.

Raised in Los Angeles, Leah has lived with her family in Washington since 2002, with a few years' hiatus when they lived in London. They returned to DC in 2018. Her three children are members of the classes of 2022, 2026, and 2029. 

Pierre A. Chao has three decades of strategy management consulting, investment banking, equity analysis, investing and policy analysis expertise in the aerospace/defense/government services industry. He is currently a Founding Partner of Renaissance Strategic Advisors, a 39-person boutique aerospace/defense strategy, market insight and M&A planning and due diligence firm; and a Co-Founder/Operating Partner of Enlightenment Capital, an aerospace/defense private debt firm with $477 million of assets under management. 

Prior to establishing RSAdvisors in 2008 and Enlightenment Capital in 2012, Mr. Chao was the Director of Defense-Industrial Initiatives at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, DC-based, non-partisan defense and foreign policy think tank, where he still remains as a Senior Associate.

Before joining CSIS in 2003, Mr. Chao was a Managing Director and senior aerospace/defense analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston, where he was responsible for following the U.S. and global aerospace/defense industry. He remained a CSFB independent senior adviser from 2003-2006. Prior to joining CSFB, Pierre was the senior aerospace/defense analyst at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter from 1995-1999. He served as the senior aerospace/defense industry analyst at Smith Barney during 1994 and as a director at JSA International, a Boston/Paris-based management consulting firm that focused on the aerospace/defense industry (1986-88, 1990-93). Mr. Chao was also a co-founder of JSA Research, an equity research boutique specializing in the aerospace/defense industry. Before signing on with JSA, he worked in the New York and London offices of Prudential-Bache Capital Funding as a mergers and acquisitions banker focusing on aerospace/defense (1988-90). Over the course of his Wall Street career, Mr. Chao’s team was ranked #1 by Institutional Investor every year eligible and he was on the Institutional Investor All-America Research Team every year eligible. He was also ranked the #1 A&D analyst by corporations in the 1998-2000 Reuters Polls, the #1 A&D analyst in the 1995-99 Greenwich Associates polls, and appeared on the Wall Street Journal All-Star list four of seven years. He participated in 31 landmark aerospace/defense equity offerings/IPOs raising $11.7 billion. 

He is a guest lecturer at the National Defense University and the Defense Acquisition University, has served on multiple Defense Science Board, National Academies, and Army Science Board task forces, and was a member of the Defense Business Board (2010-2013). He is a member of the board of directors of IIA and SolAero Technologies, and he was a member of the board of directors of KeyW Corporation (Nasdaq:KEYW) (2010-16), Vistronix Intelligence & Technology Solutions (2014-16) and the Truman National Security Project (2007-18). 

Pierre earned dual Bachelor of Science degrees in Political Science and Management Science from M.I.T.

Pierre and his wife Amy have been at WIS since 2006, having enrolled two of their three children — daughters Mia (Class of 2021) and Chloe (Class of 2023) — in the French program.

Rachel Firschein is an Executive Director of Taxable Fixed Income Sales and Trading at Raymond James & Associates in Washington, DC. In this capacity, she manages Community Reinvestment Act investments and single-family housing loans and securities. Prior to joining Raymond James & Associates, she was a Managing Director of Taxable Fixed Income Sales and Trading at Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. and previously held similar roles at GMAC-RFC Securities, Friedman, Billings & Ramsey, and Freddie Mac. She has an MBA from George Washington University and a BA from Rutgers University.

Rachel is actively involved as a volunteer with a number of charitable and educational organizations in the Washington, DC area. She serves on the board of the Friends of Barker, a Washington, DC adoption agency and the Gladney Center for Adoption – National Capital Area Family Association. Rachel and her husband Joseph are the proud parents of two daughters: Jenny and Ava (Class of 2031).

Wesley Flamer-Binion has nearly two decades of experience in a wide range of roles in the real estate industry, including brokerage, development, construction management, and finance (commercial mortgage bond ratings and investments). He is currently Director of Credit for Toronto-Dominion Bank's Investment Portfolio, where he is responsible for new investments and management of a $13 billion portfolio of Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities (CMBS); he is also involved in managing the bank's UK RMBS portfolio and other structured products. Prior to TD, Wesley was a senior ratings analyst at Moody's primarily focused on structured commercial real estate securities including CMBS and CRE CLOs.

Currently living in New York City, Wesley enjoys being outdoors in his spare time — tennis, sailing, skiing, cycling, hiking, and gardening are among his favorite activities. He is engaged in the local community, volunteers regularly with his local block association, and founded a community group to support investments in underserved Brooklyn parks. Wesley also is a member of the French American Foundation Transatlantic Forum. 

Wesley is a WIS graduate and received a B.A. from Columbia University – Columbia College and an MBA from Columbia Business School. 

Lorenzo Giorgianni is a Partner and Global Head of Research at Tudor Investment Corporation. He is responsible for leading the firm’s economic, financial and policy analysis with a view to generating profitable investment strategies. Tudor is a global hedge fund investing in global currency, fixed income, equity and commodity markets.

Prior to joining Tudor in October 2013, Lorenzo held several senior positions at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC (1996-2013), where he took a leadership role in the IMF’s efforts to revamp the international financial architecture and resolve financial crises. He has been directly involved in managing financial crises in Asia, Argentina, Turkey and the Euro Area.

Lorenzo has published academic research in refereed journals and authored numerous IMF reports on the international financial architecture, including the role of IMF lending, global capital flows, sovereign debt restructuring and bank rescue operations. He also authored several IMF country reports.

Lorenzo holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.S. in Economics from LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome, where he graduated with honors.

Lorenzo is an Italian national. He and his wife Monica Sarmiento Martin enrolled both of their children at WIS in the Classes of 2021 and 2024.

Cristina Gomez serves as the Practice Vice President for the Gartner Marketing & Communications Research Practice. Her teams lead research and provide insights and advice to CMOs and their teams on topics ranging from marketing strategy, technology, organizational effectiveness and talent, digital marketing, marketing operations and customer experience. She previously led the Gartner Sales Research Practice focusing on sales strategy, effectiveness and sales operations.

Prior to joining Gartner in 2012, Ms. Gomez worked as a consultant providing strategic and economic advising to fortune 500 clients in a number of industries. She also has expertise in executing large scale change management initiatives.

Cristina and her husband Benjamin Stoll have two daughters (Classes of 2033 and 2036) enrolled at WIS.

Sophie Hawkins' French and American heritage make her a "typical" WIS parent who holds an appreciation for many cultures. As a fluent French speaker, she believes deeply in the educational model offered at WIS and enrolled both of her daughters—members of the Classes of 2022 and 2023—in the French/English dual language program.

Sophie graduated from Princeton University, where she met her husband, Val. After living in London, they both went on to attend Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

Sophie has always had a passion for education. She has volunteered as a teacher alongside her professional commitments. Prior to taking on the role of full-time mother, she worked at Merrill Lynch and UBS, specializing in investment banking and asset management, respectively.

Renata Hesse is a member of Sullivan & Cromwell’s Litigation Group. Her practice focuses on antitrust counseling, cartels, and merger clearance. Ms. Hesse is frequently recognized as a leading and influential antitrust lawyer, with a particular emphasis on the intersection of antitrust and intellectual property matters in high-tech industries. She is currently co-chair of the ABA Antitrust Section’s Spring Meeting and is a frequent speaker at antitrust and legal forums.

Ms. Hesse counsels some of the world’s biggest companies on a range of high-stakes antitrust matters. Most recently, she advised client Praxair, Inc. in its $80 billion merger of equals with Linde AG; Amazon on its $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods Market; Tanker Investments on Hart-Scott-Rodino matters for its $188 million merger with Teekay Tankers; and United Rentals Inc., the world’s largest equipment rental company, on antitrust matters in its $1.3 billion acquisition of Neff Corp.

Ms. Hesse joined Sullivan & Cromwell following a distinguished career in government, including leading the Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice twice as Acting Assistant Attorney General and serving that division for more than 15 years. Ms. Hesse also served as Senior Counsel to the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, where she advised Chairman Genachowski on transactions pending FCC approval.

Ms. Hesse earned a JD (’90) from Berkeley School of Law and a BA (‘86) from Wellesley College. Her children are members of WIS Classes of 2025 and 2026.

Nicholas Hill is a partner at Bates White Economic Consulting. He has served as an economic expert for private clients, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Trade Commission. He has testified in federal court and the Federal Trade Commission’s administrative court.

He developed the capacity closure model, which is often used to analyze mergers in commodity industries. Prior to joining Bates White, Dr. Hill served as assistant section chief in the Economic Analysis Group of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, where he received the US Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service and was an economist in the Bureau of Economics at the Federal Trade Commission. Dr. Hill has been named to the Who’s Who Legal list of Competition Economists since 2020 and was recognized as a Global Elite Competition Thought Leader in 2022.

A member of the WIS Class of 1991, Nicholas and his wife Melissa have continued the tradition of a WIS education. Their son is enrolled in WIS's Class of 2036.

James Iker has more than 25 years of real estate, finance, investment, and management experience. He is a partner at Composite Capital Partners and previously served as the Chief Investment Officer, Head of Opportunity Funds, and as a member of the Investment Committee and Executive Committee at JBG Smith, a Real Estate Investment Trust that owns and/or operates a portfolio of more than 15 million square feet in and around Washington, DC.

From 2008 to 2017, Mr. Iker served as a managing partner of the JBG Companies and as the co-head of investments. He was responsible for JBG’s investment strategy, including acquisitions, dispositions, financing, investor relations, and fundraising. During his tenure, JBG successfully raised seven Opportunity Funds totaling more than $3.6 billion of discretionary equity.

Mr. Iker served as the chair of JBG’s Management Committee and was a key member of the senior leadership team that merged The JBG Companies with Vornado Realty Trust’s Washington DC business and created JBG Smith as a publicly traded company in July 2017.

Prior to joining JBG in 2002, Mr. Iker co-founded and managed a real estate investment firm in Orange County, California. He has previously served on the advisory boards for the Urban Land Institute and the Federal City Council and is currently a member of the Dean’s Council for the Yale School of Architecture, the World Wildlife Fund National Council, and the Zell Lurie Real Estate Center of The Wharton School.  

Mr. Iker has a BS from University of Phoenix and an MBA, with honors, from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Iker and his husband Hayes Nuss have been at WIS since 2014. Their two children, Sophia and William, are members of the Class of 2028.

Rohit Kumar is a principal and Co-Leader of PwC’s Washington National Tax Office. In his role, Mr. Kumar advises clients on all aspects of domestic policy including tax policy. His insights and knowledge enable companies to assess critical policy issues more effectively and develop legislative strategies to address those issues from both a technical and political perspective.

Prior to joining PwC, Mr. Kumar served as the Domestic Policy Director and Deputy Chief of Staff in the Office of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. He served 11 consecutive years in the Office of the Republican Leader for three different senators, having previously been Director of Policy and Senior Counsel to Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist and Senior Policy Advisor and General Counsel for Senate GOP Leader, Trent Lott. In all of these roles, Mr. Kumar worked in close collaboration with Senate leaders in developing and implementing all aspects of domestic policy including tax, trade, budget, and health care. Mr. Kumar also held positions in the Office of Senator Phil Gramm as Legislative Director and Chief Counsel, the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs as Deputy Chief Republican Counsel and clerked for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Mr. Kumar received his J.D. from the University of Virginia. He graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. from Duke University. He and his wife Hilary Chapman have a daughter in the Class of 2028.

Edgar Nehme currently is the Chief Investment Officer for a family office. He has worked in an investment capacity for the past two decades, initially in New York City and most recently in Washington, DC. Prior to joining the WIS Board as a trustee, Edgar served on the Investment Subcommittee.

Edgar relocated to DC to join the KAUST team managing a university endowment for the first co-ed and graduate university in Saudi Arabia. Edgar was the Managing Director and was responsible for absolute return strategies.

Before joining KAUST, Edgar was in New York in different investment roles. Previously he was a principal, underwriting emerging market debt for Latin American corporate and sovereign issuers.

Edgar earned a BSc in Chemical Engineering from the Monterrey Institute of Technology (1993) and an MBA from Stanford University (1997). 

Edgar was born and raised in Mexico City in a family of Lebanese descent. He moved to the United States in 1995 to obtain an MBA at Stanford University and has remained since. He is married to Kristin Cassola, born in Milan, Italy, who currently works as a professional Italian instructor for State Department and DoD staff members. Edgar and Kristin enrolled their daughters (Classes of 2021 and 2023) at WIS. They are native speakers of English, Italian, and Spanish. 

Nandini Oomman is a global health and development specialist, and the Founding Curator and CEO of The Women’s Storytelling Salon™. Previously, Nandini was the Director of The HIV/AIDS Monitor at The Center for Global Development (CGD), influencing the role of big donors in global development (using research) to improve their performance and increase the effectiveness of aid dollars. 

Nandini has more than 20 years of research, program and policy experience in global development. She has worked at The World Bank in Washington, DC and in Hanoi, Vietnam. Earlier jobs at the Rockefeller Foundation in NY, and at the Indian Health Organization, an HIV/AIDS prevention organization in India, as well as consulting assignments with the Packard Foundation, created a life-long passion to improve people’s lives with a focus on health and education. Nandini is also fascinated by the art and science of storytelling, which led to the creation of The Women's Storytelling Salon™, a storytelling platform that is dedicated to making women and girls visible in their leadership and participation in the workforce.

Nandini has a BSc in Biochemistry from McGill University, and a PhD from the Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health. She also has an IB Diploma from the United World College (UWC) in Canada.

She has published widely in academic journals, is a Huff Post and Medium blogger, and has served on Boards of several organizations. In education, she was a Board member and Vice Chair of the Board at The United Nations School (UNIS) in Hanoi (2012-2015) and is currently a Board member of Paper Airplanes (2017-present), a young start-up social enterprise that bridges gaps in language, higher education, and professional skills training for conflict-affected individuals using virtual learning technology and the benefits of peer-to-peer connections. Her children are members of WIS Classes of 2019 and 2022.

Myra Riggs is a compliance professional currently working for American Express. She has 20 years experience in insurance and risk management services.

She holds a Bachelor of Musical Arts from University of Michigan and a Juris Doctorate from Fordham School of Law. She has two sons attending WIS — in the Classes of 2027 and 2031 — enrolled in the French language program. 

Miguel Savastano is a Deputy Director of the Monetary and Capital Markets Department of the International Monetary Fund, with oversight responsibilities for the IMF’s work on sovereign debt management and banking crisis prevention and resolution. He joined the IMF in 1990 as part of the young professional program, and has worked in six departments in different capacities. He has written extensively on monetary and exchange rate policy issues, financial crises, and IMF programs.

Miguel was a member of WIS Board of Trustees from 2011 to 2017. 

Miguel received a BA in Economics (summa cum laude) from the Universidad del Pacifico (Lima, Peru), and a MA and PhD in Economics from the University of California at Los Angeles. His children are members of WIS Classes of 2017 and 2022.

Carlo Sdralevich is the chief of the General Resources division in the Finance department of the International Monetary Fund, overseeing the Fund’s non-concessional resources and the Special Drawing Right department. He has been working at the IMF for more than 20 years, mostly as mission chief and economist in the African, Middle East and Central Asia, and Policy Development and Review departments.

His work at the Fund has spanned macroeconomic adjustment programs, natural resource-intensive economies, energy subsidy reform, debt and development financing issues, post-conflict/fragile states, vulnerability and risk management, and HR management. His career in the Fund started as Advisor at the Italian Executive Director at the IMF. Prior to the Fund, we was senior economist in the Economic Research Office of the FIAT Group in Turin, Italy, and consultant for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London. He attended Università Bocconi, where he initially studied Economics and subsequently received a PhD in Monetary Economics. 

Carlo is Italian, speaks English and French fluently, and can get by in Spanish and German (barely). He and his spouse Doerte Doemeland are the proud parents of two sons, one of whom is a member of WIS's Class of 2027. His non-work interests are biking, skiing, paddling, sailing, and photography.

Suzanna Jemsby, Head of School
Eric Brown, WISPA Co-President