Sustainability – Thought Leaders in Business

New York Architecture 2.0 What Urban Planning and Design is Possible for a Livable City

with Kent Johnson

October 6, 6:00 pm, Yale Club

New York is experiencing significant growth in the real estate sector with a number of competing entities seeking to live and work here.

Some may argue that this trend is a spur to the continued viability of the city as a desirable economic marketplace.

Others would say that the quality of life is at risk, with development run amok, placing the desires of a few ahead of the life style interests of the many.

All can likely agree that the long term architectural planning and design of the built environment has been largely ignored for the sake of the short term building goals.

Kent Johnson, Principal of milktrout, an architectural firm, has a unique take on the future of New York real estate that weighs the demands of real estate developers with the goals of environmental and human interests.

His talk is an inquiry into the viability of current architectural ideas and their impact on a livable urban environment.

Milktrout designs for residential and commercial spaces and has as one of its goals the re-purposing of buildings to effect sustainability of the built environment.

We look forward to seeing you at the Yale Club.

Please check with the front desk on the exact meeting location when you arrive.

Future Focus: How Successful Companies Stay Relevant by Continual Innovation

with Jeff Loehr

June 2, 6:00 pm, Yale Club

Business success and failure depend on decisions leaders make; they are not a result of changes in the market. However, the market is changing more quickly than most people realize so making these decisions requires that leadership find ways to overcome their biases, focus on the future and continuously reinvent to keep up.

Logically managers and leaders may know this but still struggle to manage the change. The reason for this, based on our observations working with clients around the world, is that as people we become stuck in our mental models of past success. To respond to changing market conditions managers, leaders and founders work harder at doing what they did before. Eventually, when this doesn’t work they look for silver bullet solutions that could come from innovating revolutionary products or even restructuring, but these can make the problem worse.

Future focused companies avoid this crisis by thinking about what the future could look like and preparing for it. They continuously reinvent and evolve rather than look for silver bullet solutions. In our practice we look for and build three key aspects to future focused companies: flexibility in the development and execution of their strategy, foresight to break mental models and discover new opportunities and focus to both build the core and also develop new options in the periphery.

Jeff will talk about the mental model challenge and the key aspects of a future focused company.

Jeff Loehr is a partner at Stratalis Consulting. He has experience working with teams of all sizes and at all stages of company development from developing a strategy for tech startups creating an innovation program for the world’s deepest mine. He works with teams and companies to help them break out of their mental models, explore new options and develop successful businesses.

We look forward to seeing you at the Yale Club. Please check with the front desk on the exact meeting location when you arrive.

All Possible Worlds: How Data is the Real Engine of Creativity

with Alex Toplansky

March 3, 6:00 pm

In the information economy, creative thinking is emerging as a key survival skill for leaders. But while it is often made to sound like an innate talent, creative thinking is a learned discipline. Successful creative professionals have learned that organization, communication and data, not ideation, are the cornerstones of actionable creativity.

For the past 10 years, Alex Toplansky has designed and produced interactive products ranging from B2B analytics tools to blockbuster video games. Today, Alex works as a Senior Writer for the award-winning game studio Deep Silver Volition. He’ll show you how science and systems thinking inform industrial-strength creativity, and how these methods encourage cultures of success in any industry.

You will learn new tools to break down complex problems into navigable steps and isolate useful solutions, the building blocks of the creative process.

This event will help you zero-in on successful ideas and create with a purpose.

Advance registration is required, as seating is limited.

Please RSVP to Chris Moschovitis at RSVP@TMGR.COM

Add this event to your calendar

The Return of Manufacturing to NY and the Growth of Workforce Development

with Rob Sanchez

October 6, 6:00 – 8:00 pm

Rob Sanchez is a Yale Club member and the Chief Strategy Officer of Manufacture New York, a fashion incubator and factory dedicated to providing emerging independent fashion designers with the resources to move their designs into the marketplace.

Manufacture New York is committed to the development of a sustainable workforce as a vital sector of the local industry and a beacon for talented fashion professionals to live and work in New York.

Rob sees that the local economy, which at one time included a significant design sector, can stake a claim as a center for design and manufacturing. His organization believes that a resurgence is possible through the organic growth of smaller companies who are committed to sustainable workforce expansion.

Current conventional wisdom has it that fashion manufacturing jobs are the domain of overseas providers. However, Rob is one of the leaders in the fashion industry who see tangible benefits for consumers, corporations and municipal agencies to reverse this trend.

This event is an opportunity to listen to the new wave of thought and action in the fashion industry as traditional paradigms are updated with an eye towards collaboration and sustainability.

Rob has started four different companies and worked for two additional startups. In his last company, Fashioning Our Industry, Rob began a fashion focused pitch event, resulting in the successful funding of two companies. He also worked for the New York Angels, an angel investment group, evaluating over 25 companies, performing due diligence on five private deals, and participating in over $5,000,000 in raised funds.

In addition to his work with Manufacture New York, Rob is also an Adjunct Professor at Fordham Law School, where he teaches Entrepreneurial Law. Previously, Rob founded Fashioning Our Industry, conference on law, business, and finance for fashion designers that resulted in the successful funding of two companies. He holds a J.D. from Fordham Law School where he focused on Business Law, Fashion Law, and Entrepreneurial Law and a B.A. in English and Psychology from Yale.

Advance registration is required, as seating is limited.
Click here to register on-line, or:

Please RSVP to Chris Moschovitis at RSVP@TMGR.COM

Integrity: An Access to Effective Leadership

with Christopher Gates

Thursday, September 18, 6 pm

In a one-hour fully interactive conversation, Christopher Gates, a member of the Yale Club, introduces a new model of integrity developed by a group of leadership scholars led by Werner Erhard and Michael Jensen, which you can read HERE.

Chris shares how applying this new model of integrity provides access at any moment to power, freedom, and peace of mind in any area that calls for effective action.

Christopher C. Gates, Managing Director, J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, supports individuals and family groups with wealth management. As a volunteer, he works as a leadership coach with grassroots community leaders in Northern Ireland, Israel, and the US. As a hobby, he has appeared as an actor on TV and in film. He lives in New York City and Aspen, CO.

Advance registration is required, as seating is limited.
Click here to register on-line, or:

Please RSVP to Chris Moschovitis at RSVP@TMGR.COM

Law on Your Side: How to Structure Your Business to Attract Funding

with Larry Hui and Jonathan Ain

Tuesday, August 5th, 6 pm

Larry Hui photo Many companies are looking to expand their businesses and are looking for ways to seek investment resources.

Often, business managers can take advantage of the legal structure and organization of their companies to position themselves in the most powerful, positive light to attract potential investors.

Our speakers, Larry Hui and Jonathan Ain, are experts in knowing what investors seek as they pursue companies with the greatest growth upside.

All too often business owners will not pay enough attention at the inception of their business to certain basic legal details that could ultimately spell the difference between a venture that is readily “fundable” and a venture that is so littered with potential landmines as to raise serious doubts in the mind of a potential investor as to whether their investment is worth the risk regardless of the business fundamentals.

Larry and Jonathan will help you appreciate the perspective that potential investors will bring when they are evaluating an investment opportunity.

Larry Hui is a corporate and securities lawyer with over 25 years of experience advising businesses, investors and lenders in a variety of financing transactions.

Jonathan Ain is a corporate and securities attorney who regularly works alongside start-ups and closely held businesses. He has deep experience angel and venture capital financings as well as mergers and acquisitions.

Both Larry and Jonathan are partners at Kleinberg, Kaplan, Wolff & Cohen, a 55-lawyer firm in NYC.

Advance registration is required, as seating is limited.
Click here to register on-line, or:

Please RSVP to Chris Moschovitis at RSVP@TMGR.COM

Water: The Forgotten Utility and What the Global Water Crisis Means for Business

Join us on Tuesday November 6th, 6:00pm, at the Yale Club‘s Branford Suite, 17th Floor for

Dr. Sarah Kapnick
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Visiting Scientist at Princeton University’s
Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Program

Water is taken for granted as a utility of little or no concern in light of the market pressures on electricity, gas, oil and coal, particularly here in the North East. However, this marginalized resource is not as abundant as it looks and its lack currently has a significant impact on business growth both here and abroad.

Sarah will address issues, trends and developments as well as economic opportunities surrounding water use and conservation including Water Shortages, Impacted Areas, Manufacturing & Pricing Impact, Trends, Solutions, and New Technologies.

Sarah is well published in the area of hydroclimate variability with a particular emphasis on understanding the mechanisms controlling snow and water cycle variability. She is also a co-founder of Vertum Partners, LP, a Department of Energy funded start-up company based in Los Angeles that provides power production risk assessment software for renewable energy stakeholders. Prior to her academic career, she worked as an investment banking analyst in the Financial Institutions Group at Goldman Sachs. Sarah received her PhD in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences from University of California-Los Angeles and AB in Mathematics from Princeton University.

Advance registration is required, as seating is limited. Click here to register on-line, or:

Please RSVP to Chris Moschovitis at RSVP@TMGR.COM

The Past, Present, and Future Of Green Investing

Thank you all for attending our inaugural event!

You can view the presentation below.

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Jack Robinson, the founder of Winslow Management, will speak on “The Past, Present, and Future Of Green Investing.”

Jack Robinson was the founder of Winslow Management, an investment firm with a clear mission: the management of environmentally responsible investment portfolios.

Under Jack’s leadership, the firm developed a unique investing style and became widely recognized as a leader in the green and sustainability investing field, an initiative he is now leading at Brown Advisory.

Join us as Jack discusses the historical development of green investing and the future trends in the sustainable (aka green) investment field.

Advance registration is required, as seating is limited!

For more information, please contact Chris Moschovitis