The Pacific Council will be hosting an in-person new member orientation to welcome our newly elected Fall 2024 members. This will be an opportunity to connect with fellow members in your cohort, meet select Board members and Pacific Council staff, and hear directly from current members who will share their unique membership experiences—from attending delegations to moderating conferences to launching new initiatives!

All newly elected members and longstanding Pacific Council members are welcome to attend! We hope you will join us to make new connections and share why you joined Pacific Council membership!

If you have any questions, please email membership@pacificcouncil.org and one of our staff will be in touch shortly.

Guest Speaker

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Gabriel Beugelmans

Attorney, Nelson & Fraenkel LLP

Gabriel Beugelmans is an attorney with Nelson & Fraenkel LLP, a boutique civil litigation law firm in Los Angeles. His practice areas include aviation, maritime, and complex torts. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from New York University and a J.D. from the University of California, San Francisco College of Law (formerly known as UC Hastings) in 2016. 

Guest Speaker

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Nell Cady-Kruse, CFA, CIPM 

Independent Director, Chair of Governance and Nominating Committee, Varagon Capital Corp

Nell Cady-Kruse is an industry-leading executive with over 35 years of global banking, finance, and risk experience having been based in Europe, Asia, and the US. 

Cady-Kruse is an independent director for Varagon Capital Corp., a BDC, and chairs the governance committee. Previously, she served as an independent director on the board of Freedom Acquisition I. She also served on Barclays U.S. and Barclays Bank Delaware boards and chaired the board risk committees for both.

Prior to board service, Cady-Kruse was a senior global executive at Standard Chartered Bank, as global Chief Risk Officer, Wholesale Banking, retiring in 2014. Over her career, she specialized in Leveraged Finance, Corporate Credit and Structured Finance, Portfolio Management, Private Equity, and Risk Management & Strategy, and worked at Bankers Trust, Credit Suisse, and Standard Chartered Bank, in the US, Europe and Asia.

Cady-Kruse is a CFA Charterholder and holds a CIPM (Certificate in Investment Performance Measurement). She is a Leadership Fellow of the National Association of Corporate Directors and holds a Certificate in Cybersecurity Oversight from Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute.

She has served on numerous boards, including Bankers Trust of California, the Risk Management Institute of the National University of Singapore, and Young Enterprise London. Currently, she serves on the Senior Advisory Board of No One Left Behind.

Cady-Kruse received her MBA from Johnson at Cornell and her B.S. with Honors in Agricultural Economics from Cornell University.

Guest Speaker

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Kimberly Freeman, EdD

Assistant Dean for Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity, Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine, MBA, MPP, EdD

Kimberly Freeman, EdD, is an experienced corporate, community, and educational leader. With nearly 30 years of experience, she has treated her career as a journey of self-discovery. In doing so, Freeman brings to the table a unique mix of formal and experiential education drawn from her interests at the intersection of business, government, and higher education policies affecting California’s most vulnerable communities. The first of her four degrees was earned at UC Berkeley in industrial engineering and operations research. She was awarded a master of public policy degree at USC and earned an M.B.A. and a doctorate in educational leadership at UCLA.

Guest Speaker

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Aaron Ordower

Environmental Deputy, Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath

Aaron Ordower is Environmental Deputy to Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath.

He is responsible for policy initiatives and projects that include climate change mitigation and adaptation, natural resource management, and environmental justice benefiting LA’s 10-million residents.

Ordower has worked on environmental sustainability, urban infrastructure, and economic development at organizations, including the Los Angeles City Council President’s Office, the New York City Mayor’s Office, and the World Bank. In LA, he led initiatives including committing America’s largest municipally-owned utility to reach 100% clean energy by 2035; banning
many forms of single-use plastic from the economy; and outlawing oil and gas drilling in the nation’s largest urban oil field. Ordower helped design New York City’s historic 2019 Climate Mobilization Act and oversaw NYC programs designed to assist the private sector to reduce building energy use. He started his career working on sustainable development technical assistance and investment lending in Latin America.

Ordower earned his Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning from UCLA and a B.A. in Political Science and Latin American Literature from UC Berkeley.