(New York, New York, November 4th, 2013) – The Board of Trustees of La Scuola d’Italia, Guglielmo Marconi, elected Mr. Stefano Acunto to serve as Chairman of the Board of the 36 year old school, succeeding Mr. Stephen Madsen, during its October 23rd meeting. Mr. Acunto, who had been Vice Chairman of the school for eight years, is joined by Ms. Piera Palazzolo who was elected Vice Chairman. She served as Secretary to the board for fifteen years prior. Mr. Jason DeSena Trennert was re-elected to serve as Treasurer and Dott.sa Maria Palandra was elected to serve as Secretary. Several members of the Board were re-elected as trustees.
La Scuola d’Italia, with nearly 300 full time students, is a uniquely bi-lingual K-12 prep school, accredited by the New York State Association of Independent Schools (NYSAIS). It is the only school of its kind in North America in which bi lingual (Italian-English) education is featured.
Mr. Acunto is President of CINN, Inc., a private, diversified group of companies in publishing, insurance, and entertainment. He serves on the boards of U.S. RE Companies, TAG Financial, the Insurance Federation of New York and the International Insurance Law Society. He is Chairman of the Italian Academy Foundation, Inc., founded in 1947, and serves as Hon. Vice Consul for Italy. Mr. Acunto is a Trustee of John Cabot University of Rome, the College of Mt. Saint Vincent in New York and is Chancellor of the Consular Corps College. As a Producer of award-winning films, classical concerts and off Broadway classics, he has presented scores of Italian artists to Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center audiences, since 1988. Mr. Acunto holds B.A and M.A. degrees in classical philology from NYU and has received the distinctions of Commendatore, Order of Merit, Republic of Italy and its Stella della Solidarietà, among many awards in the business and volunteer sectors.
Ms. Piera Palazzolo is Senior Vice President of Marketing for Dale Carnegie Training, the world renowned training company, with 200 offices, both franchised and company owned, in over 85 countries on 6 continents. As its first woman senior executive, Ms. Palazzolo joined the Company in 1993 and was elected to the Senior Leadership Team in 2002. Previously, Ms. Palazzolo was Vice President of Account Services at J. Walter Thompson, where she launched Prodigy and worked with GE Capital and Ford Motor Company.
Ms. Palazzolo has overseen the company’s foray into digital marketing, social networking, smartphone app development, print, radio and direct mail advertising and sales support. She has also written extensively on the topic of “content marketing” and has also recently published a e-book for ExecSense titled “Why and How Audience Engagement Works.
Ms. Palazzolo was graduated from the Universita di Palermo. She resides in Manhattan with her husband, Dr. Peter Falzone and their three children.
Mr. Jason DeSena Trennert is the founder, Managing Partner, and Chief Investment Strategist of Strategas Reseach Partners and the CEO of its broker-dealer subsidiary Strategas Securities LLC. The Firm employs 50 research analysts, institutional salesmen, and sales traders at its office in New York, Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio, serving several of the world’s largest mutual funds, investment advisors, pensions and endowments, and hedge funds.
Mr. Trennert, known as one of Wall Street’s top thought leaders on markets and economic policy, was named to SmartMoney’s Power 30 list of the most influential people in the world of investing in 2006. Widely quoted in the domestic and foreign press, he is a regular guest host on CNBC’s Squawk Box, appears frequently on CNBC’s other programs and Bloomberg TV, making presentations in both English and Italian. He is the author of New Markets, New Strategies, published in 2005 by McGraw Hill and numerous opinion pieces in The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, and Investor’s Business Daily. Prior to founding Strategas, Mr. Trennert was the Chief Investment Strategist and a Senior Managing Director at International Strategy & Investment Strategist and a Senior Managing Director at International Strategy & Investment (ISI) Group where he built and oversaw two of that Firm’s most popular research efforts, the Company Surveys and its Investment Strategy Group.
Mr. Trennert was one of two honorees for the 66th Annual Columbus Day Parade in Manhattan and was a recipient of the Italian Tribune’s Stivale d’Italia award in 2010.
He received an M.B.A. in Finance from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a B.S.F.S. in International Economics from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He is a member of the Board of Governors of The Columbus Citizens Foundation, and a member of the investment committee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. He has been a Trustee of La Scuola since 2009.
Dott.sa. Maria Palandra has enjoyed a distinguished career in education. With 20 plus years of management experience and knowledge, as a school district senior manager, system-wide improvement leader, curriculum developer, program designer and evaluator.
From 2011 to the present, she has served as a consultant to the Brienza Academic Enterprise. Prior to that she was Associate Professor, Curriculum and Teaching (Administration and Supervision), at Hunter College, and adjunct Associate Professor, St. John’s University and Administrative and Teaching at the Elmont Public Schools, Elmont, N.Y.
Widely published in the educational field, she has been a Trustee of La Scuola d’Italia in New York since 2011. She served as representative or Italy, Global Partnership Project, Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College/CUNY New York, Advisory Council Member, Hunter College/CUNY New York, Committee to Redesign the Childhood Education Program, Co-chair; Italian American Committee on Education, New York, Executive Committee (treasurer); and the Higher Education Committee for the 21st Assembly District, New York State, Chair, CUNY University Faculty Senate, New York, Representative and holds a Ph.D. in Ed Research (Hofstra), PD-Administration, (CUNY), MS-Curriculum (Fordham), MA – Romance Languages (Hunter), BA-Romance Languages (Hunter) 1973, Lettere Moderne (Salerno), Diploma Magistrale, Istituto Magistrale, Foggio 1966.
She has been honored by Italian Charities of America, Christopher Columbus Award, 2011, Elmont Women of Distinction – Sandra Day O’Connor Award, 2005, Long Island Language Teachers, Inc.-Friends of Foreign Languages, 2005, Association of Italian-American Educators-School Administration Award, 2004, New York State Governor-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Humanitarian Award, 2003, and Italian Americans for Better Government-Educator of the Year, 1998.
In addition to Officers of the Board re-elected to three year terms were the following trustees:
Mr. Carlo Mantica, Co-CEO, Le Cirque International; Prof. Richard Marotta, Headmaster of the Garden School; Hon. Dominic Massaro, Justice, Supreme Court, New York; Dr. Francesca Verga, M.D.; Baronessa Mariuccia Zerilli-Marimo, founder of Casa Italiana Zerilli-Mar
La Scuola d’Italia, founded in 1977, is unique among New York schools. It has two locations, at 12 East 96th Street and 407 East 67th Street in Manhattan. For more information, see www.lascuoladitalia.org.
For more information, please contact the office of S. Acunto.