Public Policy Environment: Business Sector Challenges and Opportunities
March 15-16/Monday & Tuesday

This 2-day conference highlights select challenges and opportunities generated by the current, unusually turbulent business landscape.  A primary goal of this event is to offer participants, both students and business professionals alike, exposure to a series of topics, including an exploration of the framework where public policy impacts the business environment generally and various market segments specifically.

Click here to register.  Registration deadline is March 11, 2010.

Schedule subject to change

Monday, March 15, 2010

Location: GITC 3720-3740 (click here for campus map)

• 8:15 - 8:45 – Registration/Breakfast
  
• 9:00 - 9:30 – Welcome, D. Elaine Frazier-Dir. EMBA and Graduate Programs & Dr. Shanthi Gopalakrishnan, Associate Dean
  
• 9:30 - 10:30 – Overview of Current Public Policy Environment/A View from Inside Out
  Speaker:  Peter Pitts, Partner/Director, Global Healthcare-Porter Novelli
  
• 10:45 - 12:15 – “The Politics of Health Care Reform” - Local and Global Perspectives
  Moderator:  Dr. Steve Adubato – Broadcaster, Author, University Professor
  
  Abstract:  For years, everyone from politicians on both sides of the aisle to corporate execs to your neighbor and uncle have justifiably bemoaned American health care -- the out-of-control costs, the vast inefficiencies, the lack of access, and the often inexplicable blunders.  But the very real problems with the health-care system mask a simple fact: Without it the nation's labor market would be in a deep coma. Since 2001, 1.7 million new jobs have been added in the health-care sector, which includes related industries such as pharmaceuticals and health insurance. Unquestionably, health care has become the main American employment program for the 21st century, replacing, at least for the moment, all the other industries that are vanishing from the landscape. With more than $2 trillion in spending -- half public, half private -- health care is propping up local job markets in the Northeast, Midwest, and the South, the regions hit hardest by globalization and the collapse of manufacturing.  It is noteworthy that beyond health care reform, the industry’s impact on national markets requires further scrutiny.
  
  Panelists:
  Peter Pitts, Partner/Dir, Global Healthcare-Porter Novelli
  Eric Rugo-Senior Director - Health Policy & Reimbursement, Stryker Orthopaedics
  Ms. Renuka Gadde-Dir, Global Health, Becton Dickinson
  Peter Cucchiara, Director of Health Care Information Technology & Performance - Primary Care Development Corp
  

• 12:30 -1:30 pm – LUNCH
  

• 1:45- 2:45 – Future of Economic Development in New Jersey: Challenges & Opportunities
  Speaker: Gil Medina, Executive Managing Director for Cushman & Wakefield of New Jersey, Inc.; Former Commissioner/CEO of the NJ Commerce Commission 1994 until 2002.
  
• 3:00- 4:00 – “Who’s Minding the Shop? - Public Policy and Governance: Expectations of Boards of Directors” 
  Speaker: Dolores Atallo-Hazelgreen, Firm Director - Deloitte & Touche
  
  Abstract: Today’s Board must navigate intense public and political scrutiny to successfully fulfill their role. As the focus intensifies, so does the demand for transparency and accountability from various stakeholders, including regulators, shareholders, the press and the public. Topics in the spotlight focus include:

• What is driving the expectations for enhanced corporate governance and how can they be effectively met?
• How can Board members strike the balance between corporate profit and the greater good?
• What is the Board’s perspective on their changing role?  

This session will provide an overview of the evolution of the role and requirements for Board Members as well as insights into the changing culture inside of the Boardroom. We will explore the impact of public policy past, present and future on the increasingly critical role of the Board of Directors.  

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Location: Campus Center Atrium (click here for campus map)

• 8:15 - 9:10 – Breakfast/Registration
  
• 9:15 - 10:30 – Financial Services Environment: Changes of Law, Recent Federal Liquidity and Capital Relief Efforts, and Earnings, Asset Quality, Capital and Stock Valuation Metrics for Banks and Brokerage Houses   
  Moderator: Richard A. Vader, Griffin Financial Group, LLC
  
  Panelists:
  Mr. Michael M. Horn, Partner-McCarter English, Deregulation & Regulation of Banking, Brokerage, Insurance and other Financial Intermediaries
  
  Ms. Anika R. Khan, Economist - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Liquidity Crisis
  
  Dr. Mary Kay Scucci, Owner-Y&M Ventures, Inc., private consulting and investment firm
  
  Dr. Prodyot Samanta, President & CEO of  ThirdEye RiskInsights, Risk Management within Financial Institutions
  

• 10:45 -11:45 – “As the World Turns”: Expanding Market Sectors
  Moderator:  Clifford Lindholm III, President & CEO – Falstrom Company
  
  Panelists:
  Dr. Elliott Schlam, Principal-New Visual Media Group, LLC, Manufacturing 
  Richard Pinto, Chair-Venture, Technology & Entrepreneurial Services Practice – Stevens & Lee, Nexus of Technology & Drugs
  Wayne Fox, Managing Director, Cyber Density, LLC, Commercializing U.S. Gov't Technologies
  Alan Wink, Firm Director/Management Consulting; Technology Group & Private Equity Group, Amper, Politzner & Mattia, Energy/Environment
  

• 12:00 - 1:00 – LUNCH
  

• 1:15 - 2:30 – "Plagiarism: A Kind of Defense"
  Speaker:  Mr. Randy Cohen, “The Ethicist”, Columnist for The New York Times Magazine
  
  Abstract: Focuses on the ethics of intellectual property. As expressed in the U.S. Constitution, the purpose of copyright was not to secure profits but inspire thought, "to promote the progress of the sciences and useful arts," not to enrich the grandchildren of the person who wrote "Happy Birthday to You."   As these laws have expanded to protect what corporations regard as their intellectual property, this session argues that innovation has been stifled.  The emergence of the internet has thrown this entire body of law and ethics into disarray -- music downloading comes quickly to mind--leading to a lively reconsideration.  This session further argues that there are places where strict ideas about intellectual property and plagiarism are appropriate --in scholarship, for example -- and places where new ways of thinking are called for.
  
  
• 2:30 - 3:30 – “Mapping Your Career In the New World:  Opportunities and Challenges
  Speaker: Dr. Gil Carrara Jr, Partner-in-Charge/Life Sciences Practice-Amrop Battalia Winston International
  
• 3:30 - 3:45 – “Is Public Policy A Call to Service”
  Speaker: Ms. Michellene Davis, Senior VP for Policy Development & Government Affairs, St. Barnabas HealthCare System, & Former Policy Chief-State of New Jersey