Professor Donna M. Hitscherich has been appointed as director of the Private Equity Program. Professor Hitscherich now serves as Senior Lecturer in the Finance and Economics division, a position she has held since 2008 after a nearly twenty year career in investment banking and law. She has a long and distinguished history of teaching at Columbia, including nearly 20 years as an adjunct professor in the business school and as a lecturer in law and accounting at Columbia Law School. Professor Hitscherich was awarded the Commitment to Excellence Award by the Berkeley-Columbia Executive MBA Class of 2010 and was nominated for the Dean's Award for Innovation in the MBA Curriculum in 2002. Professor Hitscherich currently teaches Corporate Finance, Advanced Corporate Finance and Mergers and Acquisitions in the MBA and Executive MBA programs. From 1988 through 1990, Professor Hitscherich was an assistant professor of law at St. John's University School of Law, where she taught Federal Securities Regulation and Legal Ethics. Prior to her present position at Columbia, Professor Hitscherich had a career in investment banking, during which she held positions at CS First Boston, J.P. Morgan & Co. Incorporated and Banc of America Securities. At J.P. Morgan, she was a founding member of the takeover defense team and a senior member of the advisory review committee, which was responsible for all of the M&A fairness opinions issued by the bank. As a managing director in the mergers and acquisitions group of Banc of America Securities, she was secretary of the firm's fairness opinion review committee and a major contributor to the firm's training programs for managing directors and associates. Prior to her career in investment banking, Professor Hitscherich was a corporate lawyer at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. Professor Hitscherich is a founding member of Gnosis Advisors LLC, a financial education advisory firm and has served as an expert witness and provided litigation support in several complex securities litigations respecting various matters, including valuation, due diligence, custom and usage in the finance industry, and financing alternatives. Her research interests include mergers and acquisitions, valuation and fairness opinions. She was a member of the St. John's Law Review, and she is admitted to the Bar in the State of New York.