The New Jersey Innovation Institute (NJII) has appointed Dr. Deirdre Letson-Christofalo as vice president of its Human Capital Division and Dan Kaminski as vice president and general manager of Data & Technology. Both units were created earlier this year.
Dr. Christofalo joins us from Felician University, where she was dean of the School of Business and the Center for Innovation & Professional Studies. Before that, she served as the vice president of Adult, Corporate and Online Education at Centenary University, where she led the design and implementation of online degree programs serving approximately 900 adult students.
Dr. Christofalo has had leadership roles at for-profit and not-for-profit entities — organizational structures that NJII, an NJIT corporation, straddles as well. She earned her Doctor of Education degree from Nova Southeastern University, and her master’s and bachelor’s from Montclair State and Fairleigh Dickinson, respectively.
As head of the newly created Human Capital Division, she will lead all our executive education programming as well as develop adult continuing education programming for NJII to offer in conjunction with NJIT.
Before joining NJII last month, Kaminski was co-founder & chairman of Global Finance Links, an investment banking referral agent working in areas that overlap heavily with NJII — including technology, education, healthcare, biotech, and defense. He previously served as managing director and chief executive officer for Marco Polo Group’s European operations, where he helped establish the world’s largest equities and derivatives trading platform. Prior to that, Kaminski served as director of venture financing at Lucent Technologies, where he oversaw the identification and commercialization of innovative technologies.
Kaminski sat on the Thames Valley Queen Elizabeth II’s Investment and Grants Committee on New Technologies and advised Sony’s semiconductor business operations in Europe. He founded several Israeli technology and data security companies, including one of the country’s first internet service providers. Kaminski served on the Intellectual Property Committee of Stevens Institute of Technology and was a board member of the university’s Venture Center.
At NJII, Dan leads the Data & Technology division, which will help innovative providers of data and technology solutions develop and grow their offerings within their target markets.
“We are so pleased to attract executives of this caliber to NJII,” said CEO Simon Nynens. “Deidre and Dan have proven track records in their fields. I am confident they will grow our work in Human Capital and Data & Technology, which will compliment the four established divisions we have already in Healthcare, Biopharma, Entrepreneurship and Defense.”