Mitsui Lunch-Time Forums

Ray Spitzley is a Vice Chairman in Morgan Stanley's Investment Banking Divi- sion and Co-Heads the Firm's Energy Transition banking efforts. Based in New York, Mr. Spitzley has 40 years of experience working with leading power, utility and energy companies with corporate and asset based financings and mergers, acquisitions and divestitures. From 1993-2001 Mr. Spitzley was based in Hong Kong, Singapore and Sydney and also worked on a number of privatizations for governments in Australia, China, Hong Kong. Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Since moving back to New York in 2001, Mr. Spitzley has focused the majority of his work serving clients in North America, with a particular focus on conventional and renewable generation as well as utility M&A. More recently, with the passage of the IRA and its numerous incentives for decarbonization, he is spending his time helping developers raise capital for a range of energy transition projects including carbon capture and underground storage (CCUS), green ammonia and hydrogen, low/zero carbon methanol, gasoline. and jet fuel, and renewable natural gas. He also works with a number of companies involved in the manufacture and/or implementation of fuel cells, battery electric storage systems and other "clean tech" applications. Mr. Spitzley is a graduate of Denison University and holds a Masters in Public and Private Management from Yale University.

Baruch has long educated generations of talented and hungry strivers, students who understand hard work, and are forged from humble beginnings. George Roach is no exception. After earning a business degree from the Zicklin School of Business in 1971, George was poised to accept a marketing ang and sales position in Ohio, but after meeting someone special (his wife, Maria), he was determined to remain in New York. Through a friend, he quickly landed a competing offer for a higher salary that allowed him to stay in New York City, where he learned the sales and manufacturing business. That serendipitous turn of events led him to create his own firm, GER Industries, in 1973. Specializing in fine architectural millwork, ornamental metal. as well as furniture, fixtures and equipment for construction. GER Industries has maintained manufacturing facilities internationally, first in Canada and currently in Vietnam, along with its offices and woodworking site in New Rochelle. From over 50 years of business cycles, including the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, George will share his observations on what it takes to start and thrive in the ever-changing global environment.

Viktor Bunin leads the Protocol Specialist team at Coinbase Cloud, the largest staking infrastructure provider. He is the industry's first Protocol Specialist, a role he created as an early employee of Bison Trails (acquired by Coinbase) that has now become an industry staple at organizations like al6z and Blockdaemon. Viktor is also the co-founder of Credibly Neutral, a venture fund invest- ing in protocols, infrastructure, and crypto SaaS. He graduated Baruch College with double majors of Economics and Psychology from the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife Lisa, son Sasha, and dog Korra.

Lee Dittmar has been a highly sought-after advisor to executives and directors from Fortune 100 companies to start-ups for four decades. He is known for his ability to parse through complex problems, systems, and processes, and develop practical solutions. He is a well-known expert in governance, risk management and compliance, analytics, business transformation, advanced technology, and strategy development. He served some of Deloitte’s largest clients and managed many large technology-enabled transformation projects. He established the Enterprise Governance consulting practice and helped to launch the Deloitte Center for Corporate Governance. After retiring from Deloitte in 2015, Lee relaunched his own firm, Business Solutions, Inc., and continued to advise clients around the world. Lee earned a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering (Drexel, 1975) and a Master of Business Administration (Wharton, 1986). Lee has been a guest lecturer at several universities, including Drexel University, University of Pennsylvania, UC Berkeley, and University of Richmond.

Mr. Robert I. Lipp joined Stone Point Capital in 2009 and has more than 30 years of experience in the financial services industry. Prior to joining Stone Point, Mr. Lipp served as a Director and Senior Advisor to JPMorgan Chase where he focused on international consumer banking and senior-level executive management development. He is the former Chairman and Chief Executive of Citigroup's Global Consumer Group, as well as a former Vice Chairman of Citigroup. Following his tenure at Citigroup, Mr. Lipp led the spin-off from Citigroup and the initial public offering of Travelers Property Casualty Corp., which at the time was the largest insurance industry IPO in U.S. history. He subsequently served as Chairman and CEO of Travelers Property Casualty Company until its merger with The St. Paul Companies, Inc. Mr. Lipp previously served on the Board of Directors at Accenture from 2001-2012. Mr. Lipp attended (and received an honorary degree from) Williams College. He graduated from Williams in 1960. He received his M.B.A. at Harvard University and his J.D. at New York University.

Wilson Liu, Chairman of ETAO International Group (Nasdaq: ETAO), is a two- time Baruch graduate with an M.S. in Computer Information Systems ('97), and an M.S. in Accounting ('03). Prior to founding ETAO, Mr. Liu was the founder and President of WHSP Capital, served as the CFO of Apollo Solar Energy (ASOE). He co-founded Beijing CSII (300663) in 1999, a leading fintech company in China with over 400 large, medium and small banks as its customers. With more than 20 years of Wall Street experience in investment and finance management, he also has the distinction of being the first American Chinese regulator at the New York Stock Exchange. Earlier in his career, he held technical, consulting and auditing positions at JP Morgan Chase, NYSE, Reuters, PWC, Citibank and Morgan Stanley. Mr. Liu is a serial entrepreneur with proven leadership as a doer, speaker and thought leader. He has written over 5,000 Chinese classical poems and 9 books in the past 10 years in thinking patterns, numerology and psychology, philosophy and comparative religions study.

with speaker Lawrence Fannin, Director of Trade Compliance and Export

Commissioner, Americas Carl Zeiss, Inc. The title of the presentation is “A Day in the Life of International Business.” 

Moderated by Myung-Soo Lee, Director of Weissman Center for International Business and Professor of Marketing and international Business at Zicklin School of Business, the speaker for today’s lecture is Seth Besmertnik, former Baruch student and now company CEO, who attends Baruch’s the 161st Baruch Mitsui-Lunch Form. Mr. Besmertnik shares his successful career experiences on how he learned from failure to build his 500 million dollars business within two decades.

Mike Steib is the CEO of Artsy, the world's leading online platform for discovering, buying and selling fine art.

Mitsui Lunch-Time Forum No. CXLV