Current Board of Directors
J. Randall Woolridge
J. Randall Woolridge is a Professor of Finance and the Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Frank P. Smeal Endowed University Fellow at The Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Woolridge is also the Director of the Smeal College Trading Room. Dr. Woolridge’s teaching and research interests are in corporate finance and investments, with an emphasis on the valuation of corporate strategic investment and financial decisions. He has published over 35 articles in leading academic and professional journals, including the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Strategic Management Journal, and the Harvard Business Review. Dr. Woolridge’s research has been highlighted extensively in the financial press and he has appeared as a guest on CNN’s Money Line, CNBC’s Morning Call, and Business Today.
J. David Rogers
J. David Rogers currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of RPO, LLC. Prior to his time at RPO, Mr. Rogers served as the Founder and Managing Member of JD Capital Management LLC. Prior to founding JD Capital Management LLC, Mr. Rogers worked in the Equities Division at Gold- man, Sachs & Co. for over nineteen years. From 1989 to 1992, Mr. Rogers established and ran Equity Derivatives for Goldman Sachs in Tokyo. Mr. Rogers was named as a Partner of Goldman Sachs in 1992 and was co-head of Global Equity Derivatives from 1991 to 1996. Following his tenure as co-head of Global Equity Derivatives, Mr. Rogers was named Head of Equities Division Trading and Risk Management, a position he held from 1996 to 1998. Mr. Rogers was seconded to the Long Term Capital Management Oversight Committee in 1998, where his role was to manage the recapitalization and unwind of LTCM. For his work on the committee, Mr. Rogers was named 1999 Risk Manager of the year by Risk Magazine. In 2000, Mr. Rogers was named to the Equity Division Operating Committee at Goldman Sachs. Mr. Rogers received his B.S. in Accounting and his M.B.A. with a concentration in Finance from The Pennsylvania State University.
Charles S. Lipson
Charles S. Lipson has been the General Partner of C.S.L. Associates L.P., an investment partnership founded in 1992. C.S.L. Associates L.P. invests primarily in equities both long and short with an emphasis on smaller capitalization companies. Prior to founding C.S.L. Associates, L.P., Mr. Lipson was Vice President of Institutional Equity Sales at Drexel Burnham Lambert and County Nat West. Before that, Mr. Lipson was a Vice President and Portfolio Manager for the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company. Mr. Lipson holds a B.A. in Economics from The Pennsylvania State University and a Master’s in Finance from the Wharton School of Finance.
Blake Gall, CFA
Blake Gall is the founder and president of MicroPlusPlus Investment Management, LLC which focuses on microcap stocks. Prior to 2011, Mr. Gall was the Vice Chairman of Quantitative Equities for OFI Institutional Asset Management (“OFII”), the institutional investment arm of Oppenheimer Funds. At OFII (and its predecessor, Trinity Investment Management), he managed quantitatively driven portfolios for clients around the world, including major corporations, governments, endowments, and foundations. Before joining Trinity in 1985, Mr. Gall was Director of Quantitative Research at Prudential Securities in New York. Earlier he was a Small-Cap Equity Analyst at E.F. Hutton, and an A.S.E. and Apparel Analyst at Standard & Poor’s, where he started in 1974. Mr. Gall holds a B.S.E. in Engineering from Princeton University, did his graduate work in macroeconomics, and is a Chartered Financial Analyst. He has been active in the CFA program on the Candidate Curriculum Committee and the Council of Examiners (writing questions for the Level III exam). He has also served on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Pension Plan Investing.
Corey Phelps (Ex-Officio Director)
Corey Phelps was appointed as the John and Karen Arnold Dean of Penn State’s Smeal College of Business, effective July 15, 2024. He oversees all aspects of one of the largest business schools in the nation. Phelps brings a wealth of experience in higher education and business. Prior to Penn State, he served as the dean of the University of Oklahoma Michael F. Price College of Business, Fred E. Brown Chair of Business, and professor of entrepreneurship and strategy. He holds a Ph.D. and a master’s degree in business administration from New York University’s Stern School of Business and an MBA and bachelor’s degree from San Diego State University. His academic career includes positions at McGill University, HEC Paris, and the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business. His research on strategy, entrepreneurship, and innovation has been widely published and cited more than 9,500 times. He co-authored the book “Cracked It! How to Solve Big Problems and Sell Solutions Like Top Strategy Consultants.”
James P. Brandau
James Brandau, who is currently the Chairman of the NLF Board of Directors, is a Managing Director at William Blair. Mr. Brandau and his team manage assets for private business owners, business executives, endowments, foundations, and high-net-worth investors. Mr. Brandau has spent almost 20 years advising clients in the private wealth management space. Before joining William Blair, he was a Managing Director at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. from 2014 to 2022, where he helped expand the Philadelphia practice from $4 billion to $9 billion in assets under management. Earlier in his career, Mr. Brandau worked at Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management from 2005 to 2014, serving substantial private business owners and corporate executives. At the time, he and his partners managed more than $1.7 billion in assets for foundations and high net-worth families. Mr. Brandau began his career in 2003 as an Analyst at J.P. Morgan Private Bank. Mr. Brandau received a B.S. in Finance from The Pennsylvania State University and an M.B.A. from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He currently serves as a Director on the following boards: the Philadelphia Orchestra (investment committee), the Philadelphia Academy of Music, the Penn State Endowment, and the Penn State Smeal College of Business Board of Visitors.
Emily Zheng
Emily Zheng currently works for BetterUp within their Corporate Development & Strategy department after previously working at Brookfield Asset Management in their growth equity arm based in San Francisco. She also previously worked at SoftBank Investment Advisors in San Francisco, covering consumer, internet, and real estate prop tech. Prior to her role at SoftBank, Ms. Zheng worked at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in their Financial Institutions Group and Private Equity Group in New York. She interned in the Natural Resources and Financial Institutions group during the summers of 2013 and 2014. Ms. Zheng graduated from The Pennsylvania State University in 2014 with a B.S. in Finance and a B.A. in Economics and served as the President of the Nittany Lion Fund.
Joseph Cullen
Joseph Cullen serves as the Chief Investment Officer at Penn State. He joined the University in 2019 and he has more than 30 years of investment experience. In leading the Office of Investment Management, Joe is responsible for managing a team that oversees the University’s financial investments, including working with the Penn State Investment Council in managing the assets held in the Long-Term Investment Pool. Prior to joining Penn State, Mr. Cullen was the Chief Investment Officer at the Montana Board of Investments. Mr. Cullen has also held investment positions at Fidelity Investments, Amherst College, and Lucent Technologies, accumulating over 25 years of experience in the investment industry. He earned his B.A. at Ripon College and his M.B.A. at Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University. Mr. Cullen is a CFA and CAIA charterholder, and a Financial Risk Manager, Certified by the Global Association of Risk Professionals..
Kimberly Cornaggia (Ex-Officio Director)
Kimberly Cornaggia is the Louis R. & Virginia A. Benzak Professor and Chair of the Department of Finance at the Smeal College of Business. Professor Cornaggia conducts empirical research related to corporate finance, credit risk, credit ratings, municipal finance, and student loans. She earned her Bachelor of Science at the University of Nebraska, where she studied actuarial science, economics, insurance, and finance. She earned her Ph.D. at Purdue University and has since enjoyed faculty appointments at Penn State University, College of William and Mary, New York University, American University, and Indiana University. Dr. Cornaggia has taught a wide array of courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels including corporate finance, corporate restructuring, equity valuation, multinational finance, and capital markets. Non-academic experience includes analyzing asset-backed securities markets and the credit ratings industry for the US Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice.
Jim Regan
Jim Regan has been a Senior Analyst at Surveyor Capital in Boston since 2013. Prior to joining Surveyor Capital, Mr. Regan covered the Natural Resources sector as an Investment Banking Analyst at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in New York. He graduated in 2011 with a B.S. in Finance from The Pennsylvania State University Smeal College of Business and Schreyer Honors College.
Dr. Robert Everett, Jr.
Dr. Everett is a Clinical Professor of Finance and assumed the role of CEO of the Nittany Lion Fund LLC on July 1, 2025. His professional experience is in equity research and investment management consulting. He was Vice President, Global Equity Research with Credit Suisse First Boston in Chicago and later in New York City. During that time, he provided valuation expertise and advice to top tier buy side clients including Putnam Investments, T Rowe Price, Alliance Capital, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley. Additionally, he produced customized and mass-distributed research on valuation and economic performance measurement. Dr. Everett’s academic experience started at Johns Hopkins University as Assistant Professor and Program Director overseeing the graduate programs in Finance, International Business, and Accounting. Other opportunities took him to the University of Vermont and Lock Haven University before coming to Penn State in 2017. His time at the Smeal College of Business has entailed teaching undergraduate courses in financial markets, investment analysis and portfolio management, as well as teaching graduate courses in financial markets, and corporate finance. Dr. Everett holds a B.S. from Cornell University, an MBA from DePaul University and a Ph.D. from The George Washington University.
George Benham
George Benham is a Senior Vice President at Bank of America, covering the Healthcare, Education, and Not For Profit space across Eastern PA and DE. Prior to his time at Bank of America, George was with TD Bank and PNC Bank for nine years, focused on for and not-for-profit healthcare. George is currently a board member of the Smeal MBA Alumni Advisory Board and formerly served as the President of the Smeal Alumni Society Board. George obtained a BS in Operations and Information Systems Management in 2002 and an MBA in Corporate Financial Analysis and Planning in 2008 from The Pennsylvania State University Smeal College of Business.
Kevin Hernandez
Kevin Hernandez is a Principal within the capital markets division at a large, global alternative asset manager and has been at the firm since 2019. Prior to this, he spent two years working within the technology investment banking group at J.P. Morgan in New York. Mr. Hernandez graduated from The Pennsylvania State University in 2017 with a B.S. in Finance and served as the President of the Nittany Lion Fund in 2016.
Past Chairmen
Arthur Miltenberger
Arthur D. Miltenberger retired in June 1998 as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Richard K. Mellon Sons and Treasurer of the Richard King Mellon Foundation. He continued to manage the private equity programs for the same organizations until June of 2003. From 1960 to 1964, he was an officer in the United States Navy, and from 1964-1968 was a staff accountant with Price Waterhouse & Co. Mr. Miltenberger is a Certified Public Accountant. His prior activities include Director of the BBH Funds, Advisory Director of Ashford Capital Partners, L.P., member of the Advisory Committee to the Morganthaler Venture Funds, Trustee of the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation, a General Partner of Gable Limited. He is also a past member of the Advisory Committee of the Carlyle Venture Fund and the Carlyle Real Estate Fund, The Brentwood Associates Venture Capital Funds, the Aqua Fund, and DAG Venture Funds, and a past Director of Vought Aircraft, The Aerostructures Corporation and a General Partner of the Mellon Family Investment Companies. Mr. Miltenberger served as a member of the Investment Committee of The Pennsylvania State University Endowment from its inception until September, 2011. He is a member of several social clubs and has been involved in several civic organizations. Mr. Miltenberger is the recipient of the inaugural Hirtle, Callaghan & Company Award for Investment Leadership. He is a 1960 graduate of The Pennsylvania State University.
Edward R. Hintz
Edward R. Hintz is Portfolio Manager and President of Hintz, Holman & Robillard (Founder and Principal since 1975). He received a B.S. in finance at Penn State (’59) and an MBA from Harvard in 1963. In 1982, Mr. Hintz was named Alumni Fellow and in 1987 was honored as a Distinguished Alumnus. Mr. Hintz is former chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Pennsylvania State University, and served as Grand Destiny chair of the Campaign for Penn State. Edward and Helen Hintz have made several major gifts to the Grand Destiny Campaign, including the naming gift for the Hintz Family Alumni Center and a significant donation toward the new business building. Mr. Hintz also served as Portfolio Manager for Morgens, Waterfall & Co. 1972-1974; Senior Portfolio Manager for Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, Inc. 1966-1972; and Securities Analyst/ Portfolio Manager for Irwin Management Company 1963-1966.