Andrew Sparkler
President
Andrew is the Associate Director of Legal Corporate at the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. Prior to joining ASCAP, Andrew was an Entertainment Associate at Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP. After graduating from law school, Andrew worked as an Employment and Employee Benefits Associate at Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP. He attended the Fordham University School of Law where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Fordham Intellectual Property, Media & Entertainment Law Journal. Andrew earned his undergraduate degree from Brown University. Recently, Andrew was named the New York State Bar Assocation’s 2009 Outstanding Young Lawyer of the Year.
Wynne P. Kelly
Vice President
Wynne is an Assistant United States Attorney in the Civil Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. Prior to joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Wynne was an Associate in the Miami office of Hunton & Williams LLP. Wynne joined Hunton after clerking for Judge K. Michael Moore, U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Florida. Wynne graduated from Fordham Law in 2005. At Fordham, he was Editor-in-Chief of the Fordham International Law Journal and Associate Editor of the Fordham Moot Court Board. Wynne was also a Highbridge Fellow and worked with Legal Services of New York in the South Bronx representing low income clients in various administrative proceedings.
Prior to attending law school, Wynne was a certified teacher at Milton High School in Alpharetta, Georgia where he taught English and coached football and baseball. Wynne received his undergraduate degree from Georgetown University.
Wynne met Dave Nee on the first day of law school and shared countless conversations with Dave on important topics like international law, foreign policy, and the National League East Division.
Anne-Marie Peterson
Treasurer
Anne-Marie is a Vice President in the Financial Sponsors investment banking group at Credit Suisse. Prior to joining Credit Suisse, Anne-Marie was a Vice President in the Leveraged Finance investment banking group at Lehman Brothers where she focused on corporate financing transactions, leveraged buy-outs and also M&A advisory. Previously, she was a Vice President at Deutsche Bank within both the Leveraged Finance and Real Estate, Gaming and Lodging investment banking groups.
Anne-Marie began her career as a financial analyst at Bear Stearns within the Real Estate, Gaming and Lodging investment banking group. Anne-Marie graduated from Columbia Business School in 2000 with a concentration in real estate finance and attended both Trinity College and Harvard University as an undergraduate. She holds both a series 7 and series 63 registration.
Anne-Marie has been a volunteer in the fundraising division of the New York Junior League since 2004 and received her certification in Nonprofit Board Membership from the Nonprofit Boards Clearinghouse (a
division of the NYJL) in the fall of 2009. Anne-Marie has been a member of the Student Sponsor Partners Leadership Committee since 2006. She was co-chair of the inaugural Back-to-School Benefit in 2008 and was also co-chair of the 2009 Back-to-School Benefit.
Anne Buckman
Secretary
Anne has been a corporate associate at the law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, specializing in the practice area of Mergers & Acquisitions, since graduating from Fordham Law School in 2005. While a student at Fordham, Anne was an Editor of the Fordham Moot Court Board and represented Fordham in the J. Braxton Craven Constitutional Law Moot Court Competition earning the position of semi-finalist. Prior to attending law school, Anne was an associate at the strategic communications firm of Robinson, Lerer & Montgomery in New York. Anne earned her B.A. in English from Boston College and graduated with honors. Anne was elected to the Board in January 2010.
Anne had the privilege of meeting Dave in her first year at Fordham Law School and the honor of counting him among her friends for those three years. She is still in awe of Dave’s intelligence, warmth and unparalleled sense of humor.
Amy Marisa Balducci
Director
Amy’s professional background includes commercial real estate leasing, consumer product marketing and strategic management consulting. Most recently, Amy worked with Cushman & Wakefield, Inc. for five years specializing in office tenant representation in Midtown Manhattan. Presently, she represents clients through her own real estate brokerage firm, East Valley Group, based in New York City.
After graduating from Princeton University in 1998, Amy joined the Kalchas Group, a business strategy consulting practice of Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC). Amy continued her management consulting career in Buenos Aires, Argentina where she was a founding member of Meridian Global Solutions until returning to New York City to serve as a Marketing Director for Kiehl’s Since 1851, a L’Oreal company where she was responsible for the development and marketing of the direct-to-consumer internet division.
Amy had the privilege of meeting Dave through the Ivy Club at Princeton and enjoyed sitting through many lectures with him for their shared major in Politics and Economics. Amy counted Dave as one of her closest friends and his impact on her life is incalculable. Amy served as one of the 2009 Benefit Gala Co-Chairpersons and was elected to the Board in January 2010. Amy lives in Greenwich, CT with her husband, Charles Balducci and two children Sofia and Luke.
Matthew J. Kaufman
Director
Matthew is currently a Senior Product Manager and Associate General Counsel at RocketLawyer.com, the only website where consumers and businesses can find comprehensive affordable and accessible solutions for their legal needs.
Matthew has been on the board of the Foundation since 2006 along with the fellow founding board members. Matthew received the Empire State Counsel Award in 2006 for his dedication to pro bono legal assistance and his work with Sanctuary for Families. Matthew has worked in the Asset Management Division of Goldman Sachs and prior to that as an Associate in the New York office of O’Melveny & Myers where he co-chaired the Pro Bono Advisory Committee.
Matthew graduated from Fordham University School of Law in 2005 where he received the Phillip R. Fusco Memorial Award. At Fordham, Matthew was Associate Editor of the Fordham Moot Court Board and served on the Fordham Urban Law Journal. Matthew earned his B.A. in psychology from the University of Virginia. Matthew had the privilege of meeting Dave his first year at Fordham. He had the good fortune to get to know Dave over the course of the next few years through insightful conversations that at times were intellectually engaging, and at others, painfully hilarious.
James Hyre
Director
James joined the London office of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP in 2008 as an Associate in the US Corporate group. He studied History at New York University, graduating magna cum laude in 2001, and Law at Fordham University in 2005, where he was a member of the Fordham Law Review. Prior to working at Freshfields, James worked in the New York office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP where he was an Associate in the Corporate group.
Alexandra Nee
Director
Alexandra joined the Board in 2007, and serves on the Events and Grants sub-committees. Currently, Ms. Nee is the Washington, D.C. Director of StreetWise Partners, a non-profit organization with a mission to build mentoring relationships between low-income individuals and volunteer business professionals to develop workplace skills and employment networks as the bridge to a successful career. In this position, Ms. Nee is responsible for building new and existing corporate relations, fundraising, and directing program operations. In addition, Alexandra operates their website, www.streetwisepartners.org, and the outcomes surveys and reporting for both the New York and Washington DC offices of StreetWise Partners. Alex comes to the Dave Nee Foundation after studying Social Work at Fordham University, graduating with high honors in Religion from Princeton University, and professional experience starting successful non-profit ventures.
Dave Nee was Alexandra’s wonderful older brother, and her commitment to the Foundation is motivated both by indelible impact of his life on hers, and the mission of the organization to eradicate the stigma of depression and create a world where no one struggles alone in silence.
Claire Nee Nelson
Director
When not chasing after her two young daughters, Claire is pursuing a Ph.D. in American History from Yale University, where she also received an M.A. in Political Science in 2001. Claire graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University in 1996, and spent two years working in New York with the District Attorney’s office in Manhattan, the Bar Association of the City of New York, and the Century Foundation, a public policy think tank before returning to graduate school. Since beginning work on her dissertation, entitled “Blood Lines: Racial Formation and Contests for Citizenship in America, 1877-1924,” Claire has taught classes in American history, African American history, and U.S. Foreign Relations at Yale University, Wesleyan University, and the University of New Hampshire.
Her work has won awards from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in New York, the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Education, and the Robert M. Leylan Fellowship in the Humanities and the Sterling Prize Fellowship from Yale University. Claire’s article, “Louise Thompson Patterson and the Southern Roots of the Popular Front,” won the Jacquelyn Dowd Hall Prize for the best graduate paper presented at the 2003 Southern Conference on Women’s History, and was subsequently published in expanded form in Women Shaping the South: Creating and Confronting Change (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2006).
Dave, Claire’s much beloved younger brother, was the only person she knew who could argue her into a frustrated silence on topics of American history and U.S. Foreign Relations. Claire lives in Concord, Massachusetts with her husband, Joshua Nelson, and their two children.
Erica K. Sparkler
Director
Erica is an Associate at Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason, Anello & Bohrer P.C. Prior to joining Morvillo Abramowitz, Erica served as a Law Clerk to the Hon. Peter K. Leisure, United States District Judge in the Southern District of New York. She also spent two years as an Associate in the Litigation Department at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP.
Erica graduated magna cum laude from Fordham University School of Law in 2005, and was selected as a member of the Order of the Coif. She served as a Notes & Articles Editor on the Fordham Law Review and published a Note entitled Inside the Lines: Basing Negligence Liability in Sports for Safety-Based Rule Violations on the Level of Play, 72 Fordham L. Rev. 2631 (2004). Erica served as an Associate Editor of the Fordham Moot Court Board. She was a Mulligan Moot Court Competition Finalist and winner of the Best Brief Prize. She also earned the Fordham Law School Prize in 2003. Erica graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts from Middlebury College in 2002. She majored in American Civilization, with a concentration in American Politics, and a minor in Political Science.
During her first year at Fordham Law, Erica had the good fortune of being placed in the same section as Dave Nee, who consistently challenged and entertained her and the rest of their classmates. For the last two years of law school, Erica and Dave also served on the Moot Court Board together.