Brand New Year, Brand New Club

Dear Fellow Penn Alumni, 

I feel truly honored to introduce you to the new Board of Directors that will be serving our community during 2021-2022. Perhaps you have noticed that since mid last year a group of Penn alumni shook things up a bit to restart our club, which, believe it or not, has been around for 20 years... yes, 20 amazing years! Our plan moving forward is to continue to build pride in the Red & Blue and to bring that "Power of Penn" to our community.

I'd like to share some highlights of our work this past year. 

Since May 2020, current and former board members helped organize all legal matters. We are especially thankful to Donald Canavaggio, Nadia Pedreschi and all of you who participated in various meetings to formalize the new board of directors. We are in the process of reviewing our bylaws and identifying what we need to keep and change. 

We also reactivated our bank account, and yes, we have funds from all the community activities that we once held and in which many of you participated and hopefully remember fondly. Thank you Gina Faarup, Mory Belanger and Ramiro Parada who helped reactivate our account. What an important step towards the future of our club! During the last "Asamblea" we did set a $20 / year membership fee, so during the coming months will be rolling out the platform so you can all help support our club. 

In 2020 we also organized two events via Zoom that surpassed our expectations with regards to participation and engagement. Special shout out to Eli Fashka who so kindly provided all the tech support we needed. 

Did you notice that our logo has changed? We would like to formally announce that our Penn Alumni Club of Panama is now part of the Penn Wharton Alumni Club network, which means that we can access valuable resources that will benefit all of our members. We have launched our web presence at www.pennwhartonpanama.org and we are integrating our database with the Wharton Alumni Club resources. This initiative will allow seamless administration on the back end, which means better service for all of us. Our club is also included in the global invitations for Wharton alumni world-wide, and extra resources from the Wharton Alumni Relations office. I'd like to express our full gratitude to Mayra Kam, who kindly guided us in the conversations with Wharton to explore joining their global alumni network.  Also, Danny Mizrachi and our youngest member, Juan Carlos Ortega, who just graduated last May, have both been fully involved in this transition. We are so grateful. 

Last, but certainly not least, Juan Carlos Ortega and fellow student Miguel Heras III launched Pennamanian Speaker Series on Youtube. Please do click on the link below on this email to check it out (and subscribe to the channel). It's really valuable insight into life at Penn and life after Penn. To all the alumni who have agreed to be interviewed for this series, huge thank you! To those who would like to reach out for an interview, please do email Juan Carlos directly at [email protected]

Well, my dear friends, I would just like to close this letter inviting all of you to become involved in our Penn Alumni Community. If time allows, and if you want to roll up your sleeves, join us next Sunday, Jan 24 from 6-8 pm. The registration link is below. We will be holding a planning session for the next two years and we'd love for you to join us!

Hurrah, Hurrah, Pennsylvania!

With care, 

Ana Karina Smith Cain C'98
President - Penn Wharton Club of Panama