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The Board

 

 Members of the 2015/2016 board of governors
THE NEW YORK FINANCIAL WRITERS’ ASSOCIATION, INC. 2023 BOARD
From left to right: William Freedman, Michael Paterakis, Peter Coy, Steve Gelsi, Lawrence Carrel
Front row: Jan Alexander, Olivia Carville, Britt Erica Tunick, Greg Miles, Conway Gittens

2024/2025 Board of Governors:

Officers

President: Olivia Carville, Bloomberg  

Vice President: Michael Paterakis, Infopro Digital 

Treas.: Lawrence Carrel, Freelance

Secy-Asst Treas: Greg Miles, Freelance

 

Governors:

Peter Coy, New York Times

Steve Gelsi, MarketWatch

Conway Gittens, Freelance

Jordyn Holman, New York Times

David Jeans, Forbes

 

Associate Representatives:

Zach Kouwe, Dukas Linden Public Relations

Carolyn Sargent, Rubenstein Associates

 

Board Member Bios.:

President: Olivia Carville is a reporter on Bloomberg's investigations team. She is based in New York City. Previously, Carville worked on the investigation teams at the Toronto Star and the New Zealand Herald. She won multiple national awards at both outlets. Carville moved to the U.S. to complete a master's degree in financial reporting at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Upon graduation in 2018, she was awarded the school's Financial Journalist of the Year and she won the New York Financial Writers' Association scholarship. She has served on the NYFWA board ever since.


Vice President: Michael Paterakis is the data and benchmarking editor for Infopro Digital's Risk.net, FX Markets, Central Banking and WatersTechnology. Previously, he was in charge of institutional investor coverage across Pageant Media's (now known as With Intelligence) asset management titles, including HFM, the leading source of news and data in the hedge fund space. Michael has also served as editor of HFM's CTA Intelligence, a magazine focusing on quant managers and commodities traders. In the past, he reported extensively on the European debt crisis, including from the Brussels bureau of the Financial Times. Michael has a master's degree in business reporting from the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. He can be found on Twitter @mikepaterakis


Treasurer: Lawrence Carrel is an award-winning journalist, a freelance writer, media consultant, and author of three books: ETFs for the Long Run, Dividend Stocks for DUMMIES, and Investing in Dividends for DUMMIES. He was a member of the team that created Wall Street Journal.com in 1995. At SmartMoney.com he worked as a market commentator, investigative reporter, and created the first column about ETFs on the web. He has been a staff writer at TheStreet.com; and a contributing editor for Forbes.com, Kiplinger Washington Editors, Investor's Business Daily and The Asia Times. He currently runs his own media-consulting firm, Long Run Consultants, where he creates content strategy for companies in the financial-services industry.


Secretary-Assistant Treasurer: Greg Miles has worked as a front-page news editor, bureau chief, enterprise writer, on-air television correspondent, guest TV anchor and podcast anchor for Bloomberg News, Bloomberg Television, BusinessWeek, CNBC, and Investopedia.com. He is currently a freelance writer and editor and also does consulting projects. During his career, he has specialized in winning and executing exclusive, in-depth TV interviews with business leaders including Bob Iger, Carl Icahn, Les Moonves, Dieter Zetsche, Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, Michael Dell and Sam Zell. He has a BA from Wesleyan University and two masters degrees from Columbia University: the School of Journalism and the School of Public and International Affairs.


Governor: Peter Coy is an economics writer for the New York Times Opinion section. Prior to that he was economics editor of Bloomberg Businessweek, where he wrote on a wide range of domestic and international issues, contributing to the magazine’s Remarks column, cover stories, news sections, and bloomberg.com. Peter joined the predecessor publication, BusinessWeek, in 1989 as telecommunications editor. He became technology editor in 1992, associate economics editor in 1997, and economics editor in 2001. He came to BusinessWeek from the Associated Press, where he worked from 1980 to 1989 in Albany, Rochester, and New York City. Previously, he was a reporter for the Waterbury (Conn.) Republican.


Governor: Steve Gelsi has been a full-time journalist since the late 1980s and a financial journalist since roughly 1998. He rejoined MarketWatch in late 2021 and currently works as senior reporter covering banking and cannabis after working there from 1998 until 2013. He was the first dot-com journalist to perform in the NYFWA's Follies in 1999 and became president of the NYFWA in 2008. Other experience includes M&A and private markets reporter for The Deal and private equity reporter for Buyouts/Pehub.com. 


Governor: Conway Gittens is a business correspondent for Reuters Video, where he specializes in transforming mundane business/economic/finance topics into engaging subject matter that can be understood by non-finance experts. He writes, produces and serves as the face for compelling business reports on topics ranging from corporate news to market swings to global macro-economic trends to the latest tech gadgets that will attract eyeballs on multiple platforms. Content is distributed on the Reuters TV platform, Apple TV, Roku, Reuters.com and to Reuters' syndicated video clients. In addition, he hosts a weekly business video segment produced exclusively for Reuters Top News and Reuters Business Twitter feeds.


Governor: Jordyn Holman is a business reporter covering the retail industry and consumerism for The New York Times. She writes about the biggest American retail companies and the consumers who fuel the U.S. economy and her work often touches on the ways companies grapple with race, class and gender within their workforces and consumer bases. She contributes regularly to Marketplace radio. Before The Times, Jordyn worked at Bloomberg News, where she wrote for Bloomberg Businessweek and made frequent appearances on Bloomberg TV. Her reporting on the Buy Black movement has been recognized by the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing and the National Association of Black Journalists. 


Governor: David Jeans is an investigative reporter for Forbes, where he covers the tech industry. He is also the co-author of WONDER BOY: Tony Hsieh, Zappos and the Myth of Happiness in Silicon Valley, published by Henry Holt & Company. He holds a master’s degree from Columbia Journalism School and has reported for the Associated Press, the New York Times, and other publications. He grew up in Melbourne, Australia, and lives in New York City.


Associate Representative: Zach Kouwe is an Executive Vice President at Dukas Linden Public Relations (DLPR). He co-heads the firm's asset management practice while assisting teams across the agency with high-level media, crisis communications and content development. Zach works closely with financial services firms including hedge funds, private equity firms to devise and execute strategic communications plans. He joined DLPR in 2011 after nearly a decade as a financial journalist, most recently for The New York Times, where he covered hedge funds, M&A, private equity and white-collar crime. He was formerly the chief M&A reporter for the business section of the New York Post. Prior to that, he covered private equity for Dow Jones and previously worked for the Denver Post and Institutional Investor. Zach holds a B.S. in Economics and History from Hamilton College and an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He serves as a Trustee of the Brooklyn Music School and lives with his wife and daughter in Brooklyn.  


Associate Representative: Carolyn Sargent is an executive vice president at Rubenstein. She provides media and public relations advice to global financial firms ranging from entrepreneurial investors to publicly traded institutions. With more than 20 years' experience on Wall Street as an equity analyst, journalist and media strategist, she manages and messages complex, highly sensitive situations for multiple audiences. Reputation management forms the core of her practice, which includes CEO positioning, brand building and management, transactions, leadership transitions and crisis management in an ever-complex and changing digital media environment. She joined the NYFWA in 2000 when she was a senior editor at Institutional Investor magazine. She has a BA from Smith College and an MS-Journalism and MBA-Finance from Columbia University.